What’s your role in curbing Climate Change?

Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten),

Biafra, Mbarara, Western Uganda.

THE US President, Barrack Obama recognises that the US, the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, must be a leader in the global effort to combat climate change, according to the US ambassador to Uganda, Jerry P. Lanier.

President Obama’s economic stimulus package includes over $80b (sh176 trillion) for clean energy. Besides, Obama has called on the US Congress to develop a comprehensive clean energy legislation to cut emissions by 14% from 2005 levels to 83% in 2050.

But actions by the US and all major emitting nations to mitigate climate change won’t be enough – without the involvement of the developing countries. And individual citizens must physically participate in the battle of combating climate change. Let’s not be relieved by the fact that the developed countries are greatly responsible for climate change. You and I are significantly responsible.

Have you heard about, ‘cut one and plant two?’ How many trees have you planted? Do you have trees in your compound? Are you one of those who have covered their compounds with interlocking bricks? Do members of the Rotary Club, Lion Club, Scouts and Girl Guides in Uganda encourage wood consumers like the army, prisons, schools, bricklayers, carpenters, hoteliers and timber dealers – to plant trees?

Global warming continues to escalate as evidenced by climate change. Climate change is any change in global temperatures and precipitation over time due to natural variability or human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and industrial air pollution.

Such human activities have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Consequently, more infrared radiation has been captured in the atmosphere thus causing changes in the air temperature, rainfall patterns, sea-level rise, and melting of glaciers. Such changes in weather patterns cause severe floods, diseases and famine.

Climate change warns us to stop further degradation of green belts such as swamps, open grounds like independence parks and golf pitches. These green belts especially in urban areas – filtrate the run offs of surface water prior to other discharge water bodies.

Many people are adopting a perilous habit of cementing pavements and compounds. The green grasses are vital, for they ease the percolation of water into the soil. More so, we are going skyscraper and storm water is increasing on the surface, resulting into floods. Floods are the breeding zones for mosquitoes, which mosquitoes are behind the persistent malaria pandemic, our number one killer in Uganda!

Instead of seeking solutions to address such problems, we are exacerbating them by destroying the green belts that absorb water. That aside, is anybody bothered about the loss of national tree cover from 28% in 1988 to 13% by 2008? The loss of water catchment areas has led to poor and filthy water quality thus subsequent deaths of fish!

Is our fish endangered by greenhouse gases – comprised of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and ozone? Ozone – a molecule consisting of three oxygen atoms called trioxygen (O3) – accelerates the depletion of ozone layer. Ozone layer – a single thickness of cover in earth’s atmosphere – absorbs 93-99% of the sun’s high frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to life on earth. Ozone layer filters that potentially damaging ultraviolet light in the upper atmosphere from reaching the earth’s surface.

With that in mind, do we feel concerned when scientists warn that, ‘Due to greenhouse effect, the sky is shrinking? About five miles of sky have been lost since 1958 and that figure may double over the next century!’ We badly need trees to absorb carbon dioxide.

On January 2, 2009, The New Vision published an article quoting the Director of Natural Resources in National Forestry Authority, Hudson Andura as saying, ‘fifteen urban forest reserves, including that in Mbarara, are to be degazzated to cater for the growing population and development in fifteen towns countrywide.’

Urban centres are meeting points for greenhouse gases emitted from factories like steel rolling mills, vehicles, bakeries and incinerators among others. Some factory proprietors have not installed the electrostatic precipitators. These are collection devices that remove 90 to 98 percent of particles from escaping smoke and gases – emitted from the steel rolling mills. Trees remain an immediate alternative to reduce such pollutant gases.

We are ‘murdering’ trees for construction and fuel – without planting others! Besides mitigating climate change, trees absorb noise. Trees stand side by side with skyscrapers in developed countries; and forest reserves are part of the city environment in those affluent countries. Do we know why?

The reason is to mitigate city noise. Trees just do that for you, free of charge; you don’t need to install any machinery as soundproof. Ornamental and ambient trees in urban compounds, streets, recreational centres and hospitals reflect the noise to the upper direction. There used to be enough shed trees at Mbarara regional referral hospital purposely to reduce noise levels of vehicles for the sick. Those trees are being scared off!

As Uganda climbs the ladders of development, her environment is going more brown than green! Despite pressures from investors and politicians to develop urban areas, the brown environment should be in harmony with conservation. Otherwise we are heading for more disastrous floods, desertification and subsequent famine! Aren’t we?

For God’s sake, for the sake of nature and for the sake of reducing diseases, famine, loss of fish market and noise, let’s be responsible. It is not expensive for us to be; is it? We only need to plant trees, and protect the natural ones; period.

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Word Count: 912.

A swarm of mosquitoes hits Mbarara over Climate Change!

Ebenezer T. bifubyeka (Ten),

Biafra, Mbrarara, Western Uganda.

THE rising temperature in Mbarara has raised water temperatures leading to high breeding of mosquitoes.

Residents in Makenke, Biafra and Kijungu in Mbarara municipality are worried over the multitude of mosquitoes. Mbarara has not had such swarms of mosquitoes before!

The increased number of mosquitoes in Mbarara is as a result of climate change, according to the western regional national environmental management authority (NEMA) public awareness and education officer, Jeconious Musingwire.

‘The raising of water temperature in various water bodies prompts the multiplication of egg-hatching and breeding of anopheles mosquitoes, which are agents of malaria transmission,’ Musingwire explains.

According top the medical superintendent at Mbarara University Referral Hospital, Placid Mihayo, the rise in temperatures has caused the alarming cases of malaria:

In the month of April, the hospital registered 2,434 cases of malaria; 3,339 cases in May; 2,637 cases in June and 2,571 cases in July. He says the most affected people are females aged five years and above.

However, Musingwire adds that the mosquitoes have invaded homes in big masses because people have encroached on their habitat – the environment, which moderates climate. He sites an example of Kabale district in western Uganda:

The cooler micro-climate, which was being supported by wetlands, was scared off by the encroachers who drained most wetlands for agricultural cropping and animal farm establishment.

‘The scenario of wetland depletion in Kabale led to the increase in temperature, which also led to the increase of mosquitoes; and subsequently, malaria hit the area for the first time in history,’ he says.

So how can the authorities, Musingwire asks, sustain the green belts – not only to promote climate modulation and answer the scenario of mosquito multiplication – but also to cater for the water run off?

Musingwire says mosquitoes normally breed from stagnant water; and the areas of Kijungu, Biafra and Makenke are fond of flooding.

He appeals to the authorities to stop allowing new developments in green belts, ‘Scare off the encroachers in the green belts. Formulate ordinance and by-laws to promote the conservation of the green belts, and sensitise the public about their value in urban areas.’

Word count: 351.

5 districts in water crisis over drying R. Rwizi; back up prayers with science!

Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten),

Biafra, Mbarara, western Uganda.

LET’S stop depending on God and use scientific ways of conserving nature and harvesting water. Most people only pray to God to avert the looming water crisis in five districts in south-western Uganda. The emerging water crisis follows the dropping water level of River Rwizi over environmental degradation and climate change.

If it doesn’t rain soon, water pipes at both Mbarara water supply plants will have no water to pump from River Rwizi, the main source of water in Mbarara, Bushenyi, Ntungamo, Isingiro and Kiruhuura districts! Rwizi is also a tributary of Lake Victoria.

Within less than two months, from April to mid June 2009, River Rwizi dried up by close to one metre, according to the water quality control officer for National Water and Sewerage Cooperation, Christopher Kanyesigye!

Dropping water level in River Rwizi has already constrained water supply. Residents of Katojo-Ngara and Nyakayojo have not received water for sometime; besides water rationing in Mbarara municipality!

Let’s dike (creating dams) the water along River Rwizi and reserve it for use during dry seasons like this, as suggested by the founder and executive director of forum of climate change, MP Charles Ngabirano. Indeed, the recent eastern floods cleared and left people waterless. That water should have been harvested in dikes.

The dirtiness or turbidity of River Rwizi over silt has increased from 30 units to 110 in this dry spell! The colours of River Rwizi have also increased from 60 units of water-quality parameter to 300 in this season! The best colour unit level is five.

This has increased the cost of treating water to the normal unit level of five to three units, which is safe for pubic consumption. Water beyond the turbidity level of 15 units is not recommended by experts for domestic use.

Human activities like agriculture carried out in 30 sub-counties along the shores of River Rwizi – leave a lot of silt on the river basin (sedimentation).

The 1995 National Environment Act, Cap. 153 says, River Rwizi is a regulated river with a protection zone of 100 metres – for natural regeneration interventions like wetland restoration and tree planting, according to the national environmental management authority’s western regional public awareness officer, Jeconious Musingwire.

Even distant water catchment areas for River Rwizi like wetlands have been encroached on in Buhweju and Rwampara hills, as per communication from the Western Uganda site manager for the wetlands sector strategic plan-support project in the ministry of water and environment, Bernard M. Arinaitwe.

Residents have encroached on the water channels in Ntare, Ndaija, Nakivale, Ntungamo and Buhanama in Itojo. Brink-laying is done in wetlands in Ruti near Mbarara town. The soil is opened, water dries and floods wash away the open soil to River Rwizi!

The ‘I-don’t-care-attitude’ elucidates imminent doom! Look at the swamp at Busega at the main gate of Kampala city from Mbarara. It’s being reclaimed openly! Who seems to bother? Are the bylaws and national environmental act meant for drawers?

However, many people blame the lowering of water levels in River Rwizi on the farmers’ poor farming methods and deforestation. But scientists peg the main cause of worldwide water crisis to climate change – a consequence of green house gas emissions that warm the world (global warming).

The Environment Atlas published by National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) says, in 1906, 43 mountains in Africa had glaciers but in 2005, only three mountains had glaciers. Worse still, the ice caps are sharply declining on Mt. Rwenzori!

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Word count: 576.

Save Ankole cattle corridor from harsh Climate Change!

Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten),

Biafra, Mbarara, western Uganda.

ANKOLE cattle corridor is in urgent need of trees to save people and livestock during the prevailing climate change. Over half of the water sources, pastures and over seventy percent of boreholes have dried up!

Ankole cattle corridor (right from districts of Karagwe in north-western Tanzania, Isingiro, Mbarara, Kiruhuura, Sembabule, Rakai through Kyoga, Nakasongola, Moroto up to Kotido in Uganda) is the convergence zone for the warm ocean currents.

Breezes from say, Indian Ocean, are warm; and there are no high hills in Ankole cattle corridor to intercept them upwards and cool them. There is no raised topography to intercept the warm breezes, condense them and form rain in the area, according to NEMA’s Western Regional Public Awareness Officer, Jeconious Musingwire.

Man’s activities are worsening Ankole cattle corridor’s vulnerability – yet it is naturally vulnerable to climate change as influenced by the continued Sea Surface Temperatures over the Eastern and Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean!

People have encroached on fragile ecosystems like wetlands and forests on hilltops both near and within Ankole cattle corridor thus causing a harsh drought! The drought has resulted from the 0.3ºC increment in temperature (within the last 10 years) from the mean annual maximum temperatures of above 27ºC!

Sadly, the farmers’ lost hope that was resurfacing over the newly formed ‘stagnant water bodies’ (that many people mistaken as lakes) in Sanga, Nyabushozi in Kiruhuura district – won’t last long!

Ten months ago, ‘Lake Kayanja’ was formed between Lyantonde and Mbarara. This water body – that seems to be the farmers’ rescue – has resulted from the back flow during the reconstruction of Masaka-Mbarara highway.

In the same grazing area, a few other water bodies have been formed from the runoff from the surrounding hilltops, where pastures have been overgrazed by farmers and trees massively harvested by charcoal burners!

According to the water and soils specialist, Festus Bagora, pastures on the deforested hilltops will continue to dry up regardless of the presence of rainfall because the runoff that formed new water bodies eroded fertile soils!

A documentary, Climate Change: Uganda national adaptation programmes of action (NAPA) 2007 from the ministry of water and environment, states that: forests can modulate the climate of an area through microclimate.

Microclimate is the improvement of humidity (water in the air) around the wetlands and forests as witnessed by the presence of dew in the morning – a phenomenon that is rarely experienced today – over the change of climate!

Forests play an important role in moderating climate. The Virunga Tropical Forest in Congo (in conjunction with Karinju, Maramagambo and East Kasyoha Kitomi Tropical High Forest in western Uganda) – influences the climate of western Uganda.

Forests contribute highly in the hydrological cycle (the sequence of evaporation and condensation that controls the distribution of the earth’s water as it evaporates from water bodies, condenses, precipitates, and returns to water bodies).

I’m afraid our efforts to conserve the environment might be ineffective if the developed countries don’t reduce on their carbon emissions. Gas emission from developed nations is more responsible for the changing climate – yet the underdeveloped countries like Uganda are the worst hit by impacts of climate change!

Therefore, the onus is on our leaders to pester the developed countries – not only to reduce their gas emission – but also financially assist the least developed nations to adapt to climate change.

Meanwhile, as an effective solution to the escalating climate change, Uganda should engage climate change programmes in everything she does, since 80 to 90 percent of all disasters in the country are water and climate related.

Ends.

Word count: 588.

How safe is the asylum-seeking Wattled Crane in Uganda?

Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten),

Biafra, Mbarara, Western Uganda.

A new crane species, Wattled Crane, the largest of the crane family, was found in Uganda in early May, 2009 (see The New Vision of May 14, 2009).

Come May 23, ‘Uganda Big Birding Day,’ Uganda will celebrate the migration of the new Wattled Crane from South Africa to Kibimba Rice Scheme in Bugiri district.

We may rejoice for the new species of bird that brings the total number of bird species in Uganda to 1,040 – the highest concentration in Africa. But what safety is guaranteed to this migrant running away from climate change from its native land of South Africa?

This calls for Uganda government to declare wetlands – ‘out of bounds.’ The Wattled Crane breeds in wetlands. Wetlands in Uganda cover about 13% (of the total land area of 241,500km), according to Promotion of Sustainable Management of Ramsar Wetland.

Who knows, such great wetlands loss maybe responsible for the disappearance of our native bird species like ‘Kamukyerengye,’ the bird with ‘eight eyes’ (mistaken for its eight colours around its body) that was common in Ankole region, two decades ago!

Likewise, the Wattled Cranes, which have no crowns, are facing extinction due to wetland loss! Environmentalists say the Wattled Cranes, which mainly breeds in swamps, are threatened by wetland degradation.

And in South Africa, there are some 120 pairs of Wattled Cranes left – less than one tenth of the original population – because of degrading wetlands by draining, damming, burning, deforestation and mass aerial spraying of tsetse flies.

And this puts the life of the new Wattled Crane (Bugeranus carunculatus) in Uganda in a balance for it was found in a disturbed wetland – where there is massive spraying of pesticides!

According to Kevin I. McCann and Grant A. Benn who have carried out a quantitative study in South Africa, the main threat of Wattled Crane is the loss of undisturbed breeding habitat.

Wattled Cranes in KwaZulu-Natal midlands of South Africa, were found to have an average home range size of 16.64km2, consisting mostly of open natural grassland (75.5% of the overall home range of pairs).

The core breeding area consists of similar proportions of both wetland (48.9%) and grassland (51.8%) habitat. This indicates the dependence of Wattled Cranes on specific wetland habitats, surrounded by natural grassland.

The home ranges do not appear to be currently restricted by surrounding land use types, indicating that factors other than habitat loss may be contributing to breeding site losses.

Of recent, Uganda’s tourism industry, the highest foreign income earner, was hardly slapped by the global credit crunch.

So the rare and huge Wattled Crane that weighs about 8kg and measures 172cm – is our gold to conserve. About 8,000 Wattled Cranes are remaining worldwide (according to the international crane Foundation).

Conserving wetlands is the only safety of the endangered Wattled Crane in Uganda – just like its relatives – the native Black Necked Cranes and Grey Crowned Cranes.

Wattled Cranes in: Zambia (where more than half of the world’s Wattled Cranes occur), Okavango Delta of Botswana and Ethiopian highlands – breed in wetlands. The rare shoebill birds – breed in wetlands too; even those found in Bangweulu Wetlands in Zambia – breed from papyrus swamps along the Lukulu River.

Wetland destruction coupled with deforestation has expedited Climate Change, which is forcing such bird species to migrate. As the director of Nature Uganda, Achilles Byaruhanga says, cranes were not known to be migrating birds.

Therefore one can not rule out the impact of climate change to explain the new crane’s appearance in Uganda, where they never used to be. This implies that Uganda’s climate is favourable for the Wattled Crane. Make wetlands – their habitat – out of bounds.

Ends.

Word Count: 605.

Climate Change stops hugging in bed…

Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten),

Biafra, Mbarara, Western UIganda.

ESCALATING high temperature is invading bedrooms, hindering couples from hugging each other at night!

When the chairman for Network of Climate Journalists in the Greater Horn of Africa (NECJOGHA), Patrick Luganda told climate journalists at Muyenga Club last week that some couples have opted for separate beds over Climate Change, people laughed it off!

Luganda had said: during the night, the husband first pushes the blanket away; then stops hugging his partner. Next, he pushes her away or relocates to another bed!

However, one of the eight pilot Climate Change Mid Career Journalists argued that the prevailing hotness at night is not a new phenomenon, for temperature levels always fluctuate. True; but the duration of change in temperature has been expedited by environmental degradation from ‘millions of years and tens of decades to a mere decade!’

Scientists define Climate Change as any ‘long-term’ significant change in the expected patterns of average weather of a specific region. But now we experience a ‘short-term’ significant change – not long term as before!

Swamp reclamation and deforestation in Kabale district in western Uganda resulted to the rise in temperature by 0.2 degrees Celsius, displacing the area’s famous coldness – in less than two decades!

That slight temperature rise made Kabale conducive for female anopheles mosquitoes, which introduced malaria in Kabale for the first time in history, making it the most vulnerable spot for malaria in Uganda!

The perilous Climate Change continues to capitalise on our ignorance: most of us under-look conservation because we don’t understand that, ‘environment’ is everything; it contains everything, drives everything and people are an integral part of the environment. Any harm on surroundings has an impact – a ‘short time’ – on lives!

We think we are apart and environment is separate – yet we are inside the environment. People and environment are like a cobweb! And Climate Change is the heart of the general environment since it holds the steering wheel of life: land or aquatic.

A slight increase in temperature leads to more and destructive floods, diseases, drought, water scarcity, famine, poverty and deaths!

Besides the melting 40% of the ice caps on Mountain Rwenzori, the rising temperature has hit Karamoja, increasing droughts in the area from usual one drought in 10 years to seven between 1991 and 2000 – all in the name of massive degradation!

Food and Agriculture Organisation’s representative in Uganda, Percy Misika 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!

Fortunately, members of Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited: Lt. Gen. Ivan Koreta, Hon. Charles Ngabirano, Eng. John Tumwesigye, Steven Bebuuze and Robert Takwesire – have planted 200,000 pines and 40,000 eucalyptus trees (worth sh72m) on five hills in Nyabikungu, Rwampara in Mbarara.

Rwampara Agro-forestry Limited has also established a one-hectare nursery bed with 1,000,000 pine seedlings, 500,000 coffee seedlings and all types of grafted fruit trees at Makenke near Mbarara Coca-Cola plant – besides giving out 44,000 tree seedlings of pine, calbia and acapar to the neighbouring farmers.

However, since forest reserves on private land are being degraded six times faster than those on public land (according to the commissioner for forest sector support, Rachael Musoke), planting trees on five hills – is still a drop in the ocean!

More drops are needed to make an ocean. Forests are our ocean. Our drops are trees. It needs concerted effort to replenish the bald heads of bare hills and avert the faster and abnormal change of climate. And the onus is on nobody else rather than you and I.

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Word count: 600.

Five hills replanted to mitigate Climate Change…

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.

Word count: 1,552.