URDT Community-Led Landscape Restoration and Livelihoods Initiative

Uganda Rural Development and Training Program implements an integrated community-led restoration and livelihoods initiative through the URDT Agro-Eco Tourism Green Belt, working within a fragile but high-potential rural ecosystem in Western Uganda, including Kagadi and surrounding districts. The project operates in a landscape characterized by degraded soils, deforestation, wetland encroachment, biodiversity loss, and increasing climate variability that affects agriculture-dependent communities. These environmental pressures are closely linked to poverty, food insecurity, and limited livelihood opportunities, especially among women and youth.

Our project responds to these challenges by combining ecosystem restoration with community empowerment and green enterprise development. Through agroforestry, indigenous tree planting, soil and water conservation, beekeeping, and regenerative agriculture, communities are actively restoring degraded land while improving productivity and resilience. The initiative places women, youth, and households at the center of restoration efforts using the Visionary Approach and the 2-Generations Approach, ensuring that environmental action is sustained through mindset transformation, intergenerational learning, and household-level participation.

The ecosystem we work in includes smallholder farming systems, community forests, wetlands, and school-based and household-managed land units that are being gradually transformed into restoration and learning hubs. We collaborate closely with local governments, farmer groups, refugee-hosting communities, and private sector partners to strengthen stewardship of natural resources while linking restoration to income-generating opportunities such as honey production, tree nurseries, and eco-tourism.

By integrating ecological restoration with skills development and enterprise creation, the project is building a resilient landscape where restored ecosystems directly support improved livelihoods, climate adaptation, and long-term sustainability.