NFA in the spotlight over forest reserve giveaways

KIBAALE. Animosity is building among local leaders and residents in the districts of Greater Kibaale over National Forestry Authority (NFA) proposed hire of all central forest reserves countrywide to individual developers for commercial tree planting.
There are about 15 gazzetted forest reserves in Greater Kibaale.
In the new development announced and advertised in the media in July, NFA wants to hire all the forest reserves through a bidding process to individuals to venture into commercial tree growing on a 49-year lease basis.
However, this proposal has not gone down well with Kibaale District local leaders and residents.
The Kibaale District chairperson, Mr Peter Amara, says NFA cannot lease out the forests before it completes the demarcation process, adding that this process should have been handled at the district level to enable local people benefit first.
“What NFA is doing is wrong. You cannot tell people to apply for the forests from Kampala and yet the forests are here. Why can’t they bring here the whole process so that people can access them freely? Some of the forests, which have been advertised for lease to private developers, are still having boundary disputes with local people,” Mr Amara says.
Mr Amara has petitioned the NFA executive director seeking a special consideration of local people in Greater Kibaale districts of Kakumiro, Kagadi and Kibaale.
“This is because the local residents are the ones who have been keeping custody of these forests through neighbourhood watch,” Mr Amara reasons.
He says the district will mobilise local people to protest against the giveaway of forests to private developers who will come outside the district.
According to a circular from NFA, some of the advertised central forest reserves up for hire in this project include Nyabiku in Kakumiro District, Kijuna, and Kanaga in Kibaale District and Ruzaire in Kagadi District. Other forests are in the districts of Nebbi, Apac, Nakasongola, Mbale, Amulu, Kiboga and Amolatar.
Mr Joseph Saazi, the Kibaale Town Council chairperson, says the local residents might be left out in the process.
“It will not be fair for the government to give out these forests to people like Asians, who are already thronging this place in the wake of the advertisement. We also want to grow trees and NFA should come out to consider locals here, not rich people only,” Mr Saazi said.
When contacted, the NFA spokesperson, Ms Juliet Mubbi, said they want to work with private forest developers on a Public Private Partnership basis in a bid to increase forest cover for commercial purpose and restoration of the already degraded areas.
“We work with local communities and they are our key stakeholders in the management of forest reserves. We have an arrangement for communities under the corroborative forest management [system] where communities adjacent to the forest reserves are given priority and this is within the law,” Ms Mubbi said.
She said the boundaries’ and demarcation exercise will continue and this will not affect the proposed hiring of the forests to private developers.
In mid-June, hundreds of residents of Makukuru village in Nyamarunda Sub-county in Kibaale District protested against the new boundary re-opening process of Kananga Forest Reserve, which is also among the advertised forests.
Residents faulted the NFA surveyors for working without consulting local people and ended up grabbing their land by including it on the forest reserve.
Mr Gabriel Niringiye, a resident of Kiryanga Sub-county which accommodates part of Ruzaire Central Forest Reserve, says he has never heard about the giveaway plan and he has no idea of how the process will be conducted.
“I have just heard about this and I don’t know how to apply. We think the government should have thought about us first because we have been around these forests for many years,” he said.
The Kibaale Resident District Commissioner, Mr Samuel Kisembo, said the proposal to hire out forests for commercial tree growing is aimed at majorly empowering Ugandans in sustainable forest management and preventing encroachment.
“Forest or tree growing commercially requires a lot of resources and expertise, which local people cannot afford. This requires the inclusion of financially stable people who will be asked to plant trees and ensure there is sustainability. Local people will be catered for in the collaborative forest management programme, which will start anytime,” Mr Kisembo said.
Several central forest reserves in Greater-Kibaale are currently facing heavy depletion from encroachers and these include Kangombe, Guramwa, Nakuyazo and Kihaimira, among others.