Private firms help reverse forest destruction in Uganda
KALAGALA, Uganda: For decades, farmers hungry for land and families needing firewood whittled away at Uganda’s forests, home to endangered gorillas, elephants and chimpanzees.
Now the decline has reversed, thanks to a government policy that relies on loggers to help protect trees. Private companies are developing timber plantations as buffers next to protected forests.
‘‘Private planting is helping raise trees . . . to absorb carbon and lock it there, but they are also stopping people from demanding timber in protected reserves, so it’s a winwin situation,’’ Tom Okello, head of the staterun National Forestry Authority (NFA), told Reuters.
Expanding forest cover further will not be easy, as some 90% of
Ugandans rely on firewood for cooking amid some of the highest electricity prices in Africa.
Uganda’s forest cover plummeted from 24% of its area in 1990 to 9% in 2015, a donorfunded report, State of Uganda’s Forestry, said.
It is now up to 12.5%, according to Okello.
The country’s forest cover had clearly increased, Leonidas Hitimana, project coordinator at the United Nations agency Food and Agriculture Organisation, which helps fund some of the private forestry investors, said.
The companies were licensed to plant trees for timber in unplanted parts of governmentowned forest reserves, such as Mpanga Forest Reserve where a trail twists through eucalyptus seedlings next to a forest of towering hardwood trees.
The programme began 15 years ago, but the impact unfolded slowly — it takes at least seven years for a seedling to grow tall enough to count as forest cover.
The timber had to meet growing demand before any recovery was possible — timber consumption rose by about 50% between 2005 and 2011, the donor report said.
So far, the NFA has licensed 4000 private local and international investors, including Britain’s New Forest Company, Norway’s Green Resources and Germany’s Global Woods. Nearly half the 200,000 hectares allocated for the initiative have been planted.
Favoured species include pine, eucalyptus, teak and maesopsis. A pine plantation takes about 20 years to mature and makes a return of more than 500%.
The timber meets demand previously filled by illegal logging. Armed patrols also help deter cutting. A pile of confiscated Afzelia africana logs lies on the lawn of the NFA, their rotting bark revealing the hard wood prized in China.
Uganda’s tropical rainforests are vast carbon sinks, safeguarding water catchment areas and mitigating the harsh effects of climate change.
Uganda’s maximum average annual temperature increased an estimated 0.6degC0.9degC between 19512010, a 2018 Irish Aid report found, predicting an increase of around 2degC over the next 50 years.
Father of 12 Muhammad Katerega, who grows vanilla, beans and potatoes on the edge of the Mpanga forest, complained that rains and droughts seemed more extreme.
‘‘Sometimes I plant my crops expecting a rainy season, but instead there’s a drought and I lose my entire crop,’’ the 59yearold said, his gumboots red with soil.
Reforestation might help reduce such unpredictability and slow the warming.
Okello said the NFA wanted to replenish forest cover to 24% of Uganda’s landmass by 2040.
The biggest obstacle was costly power. If the forests were going to survive, that had to change, he added.
‘‘Unless electricity is cheaper, we will keep cooking on firewood. We don’t have an alternative,’’ Katerega said, minutes after a group of children clutching machetes filed into the forest. — Reuters
unpredictable
and