Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten),In Nyabikungu, Mbarara, Western Uganda.
AS Climate Change pushes the world to the edge, threatening to turn over 80 percent of Uganda into a desert, people in Mbarara have planted trees on five hills to mitigate it.
They are responding to Food and Agriculture Organisation’s representative in Uganda, Percy Misika who in September 2008 warned that if the current climate change is not mitigated, global warming will rise to between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius in less than 100 years, killing millions of species.
The Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited initiated by the Member of Parliament for Rwampara constituency, Charles Ngabirano has planted 200,000 pines and 40,000 eucalyptus trees (worth sh72m) on five hills in Nyabikungu, Rwampara, Mbarara.
He says the trees are planted by five directors of Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited, which they formulated and registered as a company in 2006. The company is comprised of: Lt. Gen. Ivan Koreta, Charles Ngabirano, Eng. John Tumwesigye, Steven Bebuuze and Robert Takwesire.
“We shall plant more 400,000 pines in the next season due September this year. Our initial target is to plant over 1,000,000 trees,” says Ngabirano, the general secretary for Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited, adding that they shall meet their target because government and many organisations he has consulted are promising to support them.
He says they have also given out 24,000 seedlings to the neighbouring farmers. By press time (Tuesday, April 14, 2009) a lorry carrying 20,000 seedlings of pine – to give out to interested farmers – was being off-loaded at Nyabikungu.
Ngabirano, who is also the chairman of Rwampara Agro-forestry, says they have established a one-hectare nursery bed at Makenke near Coca-Cola plant in Mbarara for demonstration and also to serve as a commercial seed centre.
In the nursery, there are: 1,000,000 pine seedlings, 500,000 coffee seedlings and all types of grafted fruit trees like passion fruits, mangoes, oranges, papaws, guavas, jackfruits and apples – with each seedling of an apple costing sh10,000.
Ngabirano says some people think the worst effects of climate change will occur 100 years to come – yet they have already occurred: “Besides 40% drop in the ice caps on Mountain Rwenzori that has resulted to the decrease of river flows and freshwater availability, global warming and green-house gases have caused temperature to rise.”
South-western Uganda has been most affected as evidenced by the disappearance of water bodies, decline in food production as well as droughts since 1990, Misika observes. Worldwide, glaciers and snow are melting, and climate change in Karamoja has escalated to seven droughts that hit the region between 1991 and 2000 as opposed to the usual one every 10 years!
According to the commissioner for forest sector support, Rachael Musoke, forest reserves on private land are being degraded six times faster than those on public land. About 30% of Uganda’s dwindling forests are on public land and 70% are on private land.
The field officer for Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited, Steven Bebuuze says, “People are not aware that there are free seedlings – yet we are giving out 200,000 seedlings of pine, calbia and acapar to interested farmers this season (between March and May).”
Bebuuze says that whoever has land on a hilly area qualifies for the seedlings. He says they get the seedlings from Farm Enhancement and Forest Reserve Project on the arrangement of Ngabirano.
“The government has promised to give us more 1,000,000 seedlings for Rwampara area, for we want all the bare hills in Rwampara to be replenished with trees. This would be a significant step towards stabilising the climate,” he says.
Bebuuze says, for this season, they have employed 60 residents at a daily pay of sh4,000 each – to: plant, slash and guard the planted trees against animals and fires.
“The main objective of this tree-planting project is to restock the bare hills. Good enough, the residents, after getting explanation and sensitisation from us, have appreciated the benefits of trees like being the source of income in future,” he says.
Bebuuze says that one benefits a lot from pine trees: one pine tree, which takes 15 to 20 years to mature, fetches sh200,000 but after 12 years, during thinning, a farmer harvests every pine tree – standing between three trees – to create space for others to enlarge.
“A farmer won’t lose trees harvested during thinning, for they would be mature enough to get timber out of them,” he says adding that unlike eucalyptus trees, pines won’t grow again after cutting them; so one has to plant other seedlings, which is all right. He however discourages the planting of eucalyptus trees, for they drain the water table.
“This is a project that NEMA (National Environmental Management Authority) should embrace. By the time pines are harvested, 20 years after, they would have created rainfall, cleaned the air and held soils on hilltops hence preventing erosion,” he teaches.
To him, forests neutralise global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide and methane, whose resident time in the atmosphere ranges from 100 to 1,000 years!
There are many products from pine trees: timber, firewood, wood pulp, plywood, paper, matchbox sticks, candles, incense, perfumes and cosmetics among others. “Besides, where pine sheds, the leaves decompose and form expensive manure for packing seedlings; and each truck of such manure costs sh150,000,” Bebuuze discloses.
Asked about how they are wooing other people to take on this lucrative and conservational business, Bebuuze says they are giving out free seedlings as one way of sensitising and bringing more people on board.
Bebuuze adds that the directors, including himself, normally go on radios and teach people about tree-planting and its benefits both to themselves and the environment. He says their tree project is used as a demonstration project as people visit it to learn where and how trees are planted: three metres apart.
“Besides, over 150 residents in the neighbourhood have planted their own pine trees in gardens ranging from one acre to 20 hectares. And each hectare accommodates 1,200 trees,” he explains.
Bebuuze however says the trees they have planted are helping people to realise the value of hilly lands, which they have always seen as bare and invaluable; but now those residents are earning money from selling off the same hilly land to tree growers.
“We buy an acre of hilly land at sh1.5m and a hectare at sh7m from residents – to expand our tree project. After planting trees on the bare hills, the same land gains value because of the trees and we can sell it at a much higher cost,” he says.
He says that nine hectares of trees have been planted; and if they add on trees planted by the neighbours, they total up to 800,000 trees. “We intend to plant over 1,000,000 trees in this area – minus the neighbours,’” he schemes, leading The New Vision correspondents through the steep and slippery farm.
However, Bebuuze says their tree-planting project is facing challenges: it is expensive, land is minimal, they use manpower, shortage of water, materials for packing seedlings such as big buveera (thin-gauge polythene bags) are expensive, and the fertile soil to use as manure is transported from Mwizi at a cost of sh200,000 per truck.
He says their seed centre at Makenke is not yet enough to supply them with enough tree-seedlings. So they incur costs to get supplementary seedlings from farmers in Rutoto in Bushenyi district.
About future plans, Bebuuze discloses that they intend to slash shrubs under the two-year-old pines and install 5,000 bee hives, for honey is ever marketable in Mbarara with a jerry-can costing sh200, 000. We are in procurement process of bee hives, he says.
Plans are underway, he says, to construct a house on Nyabikungu hill to accommodate the guards and equip them with mobile phones for easy monitoring of the project.
Commenting on this project, the LC3 chairman for Nyakayojo, Jomo Mugabe says, “I have personally planted 5,000 trees and I intend to plant more and live by example.”
Ever since Rwampara hills were depleted many decades ago, Mugabe adds, there has been soil erosion that prompted residents to see such idle hilly land as useless since they could not cultivate or graze animals on it. But with this tree-planting project, people will get money from trees grown on the same land and eradicate poverty.
“More so, residents will get rain. The poor parents, who have always felt envious of wealthy farmers in Nyabushozi who earn from farming, will also send their children to school. People here have seriously started planting trees like Ngabirano,” he says.
Robinah Namara Kaburuura, a widow residing at Rugarama, Nyabikungu in Rwampara, smiles before saying that she has planted 3,000 pine trees as her future investment.
“I have planted these trees as a future investment for my children. Besides, my husband, late Kaburuura was a forestry officer. I wanted one of our children to be a forestry officer in vain. So I planted these trees to commemorate him,” she says.
According to the Consultant for Billion Tree Campaign in the Division of Communications and Public Information in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Leah Wanambwa, Ethiopia has planted 700 million trees, Turkey – 400 million and Mexico – 260 million – to neutralise the escalating global warming.
She calls upon developing countries like Uganda to embrace the ‘Billion Tree Campaign’ initiated by UNEP – to plant seven billion trees across the world by the crucial climate change meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in late 2009.
Ends.
AS Climate Change pushes the world to the edge, threatening to turn over 80 percent of Uganda into a desert, people in Mbarara have planted trees on five hills to mitigate it.
They are responding to Food and Agriculture Organisation’s representative in Uganda, Percy Misika who in September 2008 warned that if the current climate change is not mitigated, global warming will rise to between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius in less than 100 years, killing millions of species.
The Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited initiated by the Member of Parliament for Rwampara constituency, Charles Ngabirano has planted 200,000 pines and 40,000 eucalyptus trees (worth sh72m) on five hills in Nyabikungu, Rwampara, Mbarara.
He says the trees are planted by five directors of Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited, which they formulated and registered as a company in 2006. The company is comprised of: Lt. Gen. Ivan Koreta, Charles Ngabirano, Eng. John Tumwesigye, Steven Bebuuze and Robert Takwesire.
“We shall plant more 400,000 pines in the next season due September this year. Our initial target is to plant over 1,000,000 trees,” says Ngabirano, the general secretary for Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited, adding that they shall meet their target because government and many organisations he has consulted are promising to support them.
He says they have also given out 24,000 seedlings to the neighbouring farmers. By press time (Tuesday, April 14, 2009) a lorry carrying 20,000 seedlings of pine – to give out to interested farmers – was being off-loaded at Nyabikungu.
Ngabirano, who is also the chairman of Rwampara Agro-forestry, says they have established a one-hectare nursery bed at Makenke near Coca-Cola plant in Mbarara for demonstration and also to serve as a commercial seed centre.
In the nursery, there are: 1,000,000 pine seedlings, 500,000 coffee seedlings and all types of grafted fruit trees like passion fruits, mangoes, oranges, papaws, guavas, jackfruits and apples – with each seedling of an apple costing sh10,000.
Ngabirano says some people think the worst effects of climate change will occur 100 years to come – yet they have already occurred: “Besides 40% drop in the ice caps on Mountain Rwenzori that has resulted to the decrease of river flows and freshwater availability, global warming and green-house gases have caused temperature to rise.”
South-western Uganda has been most affected as evidenced by the disappearance of water bodies, decline in food production as well as droughts since 1990, Misika observes. Worldwide, glaciers and snow are melting, and climate change in Karamoja has escalated to seven droughts that hit the region between 1991 and 2000 as opposed to the usual one every 10 years!
According to the commissioner for forest sector support, Rachael Musoke, forest reserves on private land are being degraded six times faster than those on public land. About 30% of Uganda’s dwindling forests are on public land and 70% are on private land.
The field officer for Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited, Steven Bebuuze says, “People are not aware that there are free seedlings – yet we are giving out 200,000 seedlings of pine, calbia and acapar to interested farmers this season (between March and May).”
Bebuuze says that whoever has land on a hilly area qualifies for the seedlings. He says they get the seedlings from Farm Enhancement and Forest Reserve Project on the arrangement of Ngabirano.
“The government has promised to give us more 1,000,000 seedlings for Rwampara area, for we want all the bare hills in Rwampara to be replenished with trees. This would be a significant step towards stabilising the climate,” he says.
Bebuuze says, for this season, they have employed 60 residents at a daily pay of sh4,000 each – to: plant, slash and guard the planted trees against animals and fires.
“The main objective of this tree-planting project is to restock the bare hills. Good enough, the residents, after getting explanation and sensitisation from us, have appreciated the benefits of trees like being the source of income in future,” he says.
Bebuuze says that one benefits a lot from pine trees: one pine tree, which takes 15 to 20 years to mature, fetches sh200,000 but after 12 years, during thinning, a farmer harvests every pine tree – standing between three trees – to create space for others to enlarge.
“A farmer won’t lose trees harvested during thinning, for they would be mature enough to get timber out of them,” he says adding that unlike eucalyptus trees, pines won’t grow again after cutting them; so one has to plant other seedlings, which is all right. He however discourages the planting of eucalyptus trees, for they drain the water table.
“This is a project that NEMA (National Environmental Management Authority) should embrace. By the time pines are harvested, 20 years after, they would have created rainfall, cleaned the air and held soils on hilltops hence preventing erosion,” he teaches.
To him, forests neutralise global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide and methane, whose resident time in the atmosphere ranges from 100 to 1,000 years!
There are many products from pine trees: timber, firewood, wood pulp, plywood, paper, matchbox sticks, candles, incense, perfumes and cosmetics among others. “Besides, where pine sheds, the leaves decompose and form expensive manure for packing seedlings; and each truck of such manure costs sh150,000,” Bebuuze discloses.
Asked about how they are wooing other people to take on this lucrative and conservational business, Bebuuze says they are giving out free seedlings as one way of sensitising and bringing more people on board.
Bebuuze adds that the directors, including himself, normally go on radios and teach people about tree-planting and its benefits both to themselves and the environment. He says their tree project is used as a demonstration project as people visit it to learn where and how trees are planted: three metres apart.
“Besides, over 150 residents in the neighbourhood have planted their own pine trees in gardens ranging from one acre to 20 hectares. And each hectare accommodates 1,200 trees,” he explains.
Bebuuze however says the trees they have planted are helping people to realise the value of hilly lands, which they have always seen as bare and invaluable; but now those residents are earning money from selling off the same hilly land to tree growers.
“We buy an acre of hilly land at sh1.5m and a hectare at sh7m from residents – to expand our tree project. After planting trees on the bare hills, the same land gains value because of the trees and we can sell it at a much higher cost,” he says.
He says that nine hectares of trees have been planted; and if they add on trees planted by the neighbours, they total up to 800,000 trees. “We intend to plant over 1,000,000 trees in this area – minus the neighbours,’” he schemes, leading The New Vision correspondents through the steep and slippery farm.
However, Bebuuze says their tree-planting project is facing challenges: it is expensive, land is minimal, they use manpower, shortage of water, materials for packing seedlings such as big buveera (thin-gauge polythene bags) are expensive, and the fertile soil to use as manure is transported from Mwizi at a cost of sh200,000 per truck.
He says their seed centre at Makenke is not yet enough to supply them with enough tree-seedlings. So they incur costs to get supplementary seedlings from farmers in Rutoto in Bushenyi district.
About future plans, Bebuuze discloses that they intend to slash shrubs under the two-year-old pines and install 5,000 bee hives, for honey is ever marketable in Mbarara with a jerry-can costing sh200, 000. We are in procurement process of bee hives, he says.
Plans are underway, he says, to construct a house on Nyabikungu hill to accommodate the guards and equip them with mobile phones for easy monitoring of the project.
Commenting on this project, the LC3 chairman for Nyakayojo, Jomo Mugabe says, “I have personally planted 5,000 trees and I intend to plant more and live by example.”
Ever since Rwampara hills were depleted many decades ago, Mugabe adds, there has been soil erosion that prompted residents to see such idle hilly land as useless since they could not cultivate or graze animals on it. But with this tree-planting project, people will get money from trees grown on the same land and eradicate poverty.
“More so, residents will get rain. The poor parents, who have always felt envious of wealthy farmers in Nyabushozi who earn from farming, will also send their children to school. People here have seriously started planting trees like Ngabirano,” he says.
Robinah Namara Kaburuura, a widow residing at Rugarama, Nyabikungu in Rwampara, smiles before saying that she has planted 3,000 pine trees as her future investment.
“I have planted these trees as a future investment for my children. Besides, my husband, late Kaburuura was a forestry officer. I wanted one of our children to be a forestry officer in vain. So I planted these trees to commemorate him,” she says.
According to the Consultant for Billion Tree Campaign in the Division of Communications and Public Information in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Leah Wanambwa, Ethiopia has planted 700 million trees, Turkey – 400 million and Mexico – 260 million – to neutralise the escalating global warming.
She calls upon developing countries like Uganda to embrace the ‘Billion Tree Campaign’ initiated by UNEP – to plant seven billion trees across the world by the crucial climate change meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in late 2009.
Ends.
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