By Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten)
Mbarara, Western Uganda.
AFTER over 900,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their villages in northern Uganda, they have destroyed over 72% of forest reserves in the area! The environment minister, Jessica Eriyo warns that Wicheri Forest Reserve in Amuru district is one of the forests depleted by IDPs.
She also cautions that the IDPs need sensitisation on sustainable resource use because deforestation and the destruction of wetlands in Teso and Karamoja sub-regions would lead to grave climate change and desertification! Yes, IDPs need sensitisation;
But sensitisation alone is not enough. Even the National Forest Authority attempted to sensitise the locals on preserving the reserves in vain! This is obvious and expected. Now that peace is returning to the northern zone, the locals must cultivate, at least for subsistence.
And for one to cultivate or construct, one must clear land to get room for crops. Although I’m an environmentalist, I don’t blame the IDPs, for they must survive. The government should give an emergency aid of like seeds and seedlings of pine trees to those citizens. They need to be informed that pine trees will be their gold mine in the next few years.
Let sensitisation be on the value of pine trees and how lucrative they are: each pine tree fetches sh100,000 and 100 trees fetch sh10m. 10,000 pine trees reward a farmer with sh1bn. If every household in all the northern districts plants a garden of a few thousands of trees, the residents will be rich and they will not need any more aid from anyone. Even desertification will use the back door to escape.
Besides the monetary gain, pine trees are not harmful to the environment like eucalyptus trees, which absorb a lot of water from the water table. Pine trees mature fast, sell better than the eucalyptus trees; and pine trees also create rainfall. Residents can even practice agro-forestry in the same pine tree-gardens for some years before the trees mature.
More than 900,000 IDPs from over 20 camps that have been closed have returned home; and that is a half of the 1.8 million IDPs in northern Uganda. Like Eriyo said during the annual district environmental officers’ conference held at Rider Hotel, Seeta in Mukono recently, more environmental degradation is expected as peace continues to ‘resurrect’ in the northern region. Therefore, the government must intervene with friendly and profitable measures like pine tree-planting projects.
Let tree-planting be the main cash crop in Uganda. Unlike Finland whose 70% of its land is under forest cover, Uganda has 20% of forest cover remaining! As though that is not enough, the rate of deforestation in Uganda has accelerated above 2.2%. Yet forests absorb carbon dioxide from the industries/factories thus checking on the global warming.
It hurt my heart as well as the mind when I read in The New Vision of September 9, on page 10, that Eriyo said, “We could not agree with the locals because they said their MPs were discouraging them from conserving the trees. Even the sub-county chairman was blocked from going to the forest reserve to encourage conservation!” Are we safe?
However, deforestation is not only in northern Uganda; it is nationwide. The National Forest Authority (NFA) reported (see The New Vision of July 11, 2008) that their study has compared their satellite images of 1990 and found out that 80,000 hectares of forests in Kibaale district reduced to 26,000 hectares by 2005, representing a loss of 68%.
The same survey (done in the same period) says; in Nakasongora, the forest cover reduced from 127,000 hectares to 60,000 hectares, a loss of 53%. And there are no significant tree-planting projects in Uganda to check on this alarming rate of deforestation!
Other countries are boosting up tree-planting projects, according to the Consultant for Billion Tree Campaign in the Division of Communications and Public Information in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Leah Wanambwa.
To him, the regional and national and local governments have organised the most massive tree-plantings - with Ethiopia leading the count at 700 million planted trees followed by Turkey - 400 million and Mexico - 260 million. How many trees have Uganda planted? We rush to cut them but we are reluctant to plant others!
The best way to assist northerners to get wealth and good climate is to guide them in tree-planting. This will save our wetlands that now cover only 13% of Uganda’s land! Tree-planting would also save our Kampala city, which has often been invaded by ruthless floods that mainly result from continuous swamp encroachment. Tree-planting projects should be done throughout Uganda to kill the twins: poverty and desertification.
Ends.
Mbarara, Western Uganda.
AFTER over 900,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their villages in northern Uganda, they have destroyed over 72% of forest reserves in the area! The environment minister, Jessica Eriyo warns that Wicheri Forest Reserve in Amuru district is one of the forests depleted by IDPs.
She also cautions that the IDPs need sensitisation on sustainable resource use because deforestation and the destruction of wetlands in Teso and Karamoja sub-regions would lead to grave climate change and desertification! Yes, IDPs need sensitisation;
But sensitisation alone is not enough. Even the National Forest Authority attempted to sensitise the locals on preserving the reserves in vain! This is obvious and expected. Now that peace is returning to the northern zone, the locals must cultivate, at least for subsistence.
And for one to cultivate or construct, one must clear land to get room for crops. Although I’m an environmentalist, I don’t blame the IDPs, for they must survive. The government should give an emergency aid of like seeds and seedlings of pine trees to those citizens. They need to be informed that pine trees will be their gold mine in the next few years.
Let sensitisation be on the value of pine trees and how lucrative they are: each pine tree fetches sh100,000 and 100 trees fetch sh10m. 10,000 pine trees reward a farmer with sh1bn. If every household in all the northern districts plants a garden of a few thousands of trees, the residents will be rich and they will not need any more aid from anyone. Even desertification will use the back door to escape.
Besides the monetary gain, pine trees are not harmful to the environment like eucalyptus trees, which absorb a lot of water from the water table. Pine trees mature fast, sell better than the eucalyptus trees; and pine trees also create rainfall. Residents can even practice agro-forestry in the same pine tree-gardens for some years before the trees mature.
More than 900,000 IDPs from over 20 camps that have been closed have returned home; and that is a half of the 1.8 million IDPs in northern Uganda. Like Eriyo said during the annual district environmental officers’ conference held at Rider Hotel, Seeta in Mukono recently, more environmental degradation is expected as peace continues to ‘resurrect’ in the northern region. Therefore, the government must intervene with friendly and profitable measures like pine tree-planting projects.
Let tree-planting be the main cash crop in Uganda. Unlike Finland whose 70% of its land is under forest cover, Uganda has 20% of forest cover remaining! As though that is not enough, the rate of deforestation in Uganda has accelerated above 2.2%. Yet forests absorb carbon dioxide from the industries/factories thus checking on the global warming.
It hurt my heart as well as the mind when I read in The New Vision of September 9, on page 10, that Eriyo said, “We could not agree with the locals because they said their MPs were discouraging them from conserving the trees. Even the sub-county chairman was blocked from going to the forest reserve to encourage conservation!” Are we safe?
However, deforestation is not only in northern Uganda; it is nationwide. The National Forest Authority (NFA) reported (see The New Vision of July 11, 2008) that their study has compared their satellite images of 1990 and found out that 80,000 hectares of forests in Kibaale district reduced to 26,000 hectares by 2005, representing a loss of 68%.
The same survey (done in the same period) says; in Nakasongora, the forest cover reduced from 127,000 hectares to 60,000 hectares, a loss of 53%. And there are no significant tree-planting projects in Uganda to check on this alarming rate of deforestation!
Other countries are boosting up tree-planting projects, according to the Consultant for Billion Tree Campaign in the Division of Communications and Public Information in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Leah Wanambwa.
To him, the regional and national and local governments have organised the most massive tree-plantings - with Ethiopia leading the count at 700 million planted trees followed by Turkey - 400 million and Mexico - 260 million. How many trees have Uganda planted? We rush to cut them but we are reluctant to plant others!
The best way to assist northerners to get wealth and good climate is to guide them in tree-planting. This will save our wetlands that now cover only 13% of Uganda’s land! Tree-planting would also save our Kampala city, which has often been invaded by ruthless floods that mainly result from continuous swamp encroachment. Tree-planting projects should be done throughout Uganda to kill the twins: poverty and desertification.
Ends.
Word count: 769.
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