Cost of deforestation

Kalangala District deputy RDC Teopista Senkungu (Right) shows off confiscated timber that is illegally logged in forest reserves. Photo by Henry Lubulwa.

What you need to know:

  • Deforestation has become a major concern in Kalangala District yet leaders, most of them politicians, are accused of abetting the vice.

Johnson Okwi is a logger. He operates on Funve Island about nine miles away from Dajje Landing Site in Bujumba Sub-county.

On average, Okwi cuts 10 pieces of timber per day something that he has been doing since 2009.
From a hand sow, he upgraded to one that uses power despite the fact that its outlawed around the island.
“I use a machine without interruption. Many people condemn me but no one has the contacts to report,” Okwi says, highlighting the lack of enforcement to curb illegal logging.

Kalangala established forest offices at all sub-counties to promote forest conservation. However it is ironical that much of the forested area on Bugala Island has been given out to investor for oil palm growing.
Such double standards have given people such as Okwi the leeway to continue illegal logging. He was recently successfully prosecuted and imprisoned for one year but when he completed his sentence he went back to logging.
“I have no other job. So I decided to get back in the forest and cut timber to get money,” he says.
Okwi is a known logger and sells much of his timber in Kalangala through collaborations including people who are charged with protecting the forest.

Loggers, according to Okwi are introduced to the forest reserve managers who they pay unspecified amounts of money to get permission to log
The payment, which ranges between Shs50,000 and Shs300,000, is not receipted because it is illegal.

Thieving on bribery
Just like Okwi, many loggers, illegal or licenced, move from one office to another bribing officials who allow them to log in forest reserves.
Among the loggers are district and political leaders in different sub-counties that have reserves such as Bunyama, Bukasa, Bufumira, Mawaala, Funve among others.
On Bukasa Island, the forest reserve is nearly depleted and this has been blamed on politicians, business people and district leaders who cut trees from reserves whose timber is sold at Nakiwogo Landing Site in Entebbe Municipality.
A piece of timber is sold at between Shs8,000 and Shs15,000 depending on the tree species from which it is harvested.

Maurice Bafiilawala, the Kalangala District forestry officer estimates that the island has about 33 forest reserves, 17 of which are located in the Bujumba Sector while the rest are in Kyamuswa County.
However, Bafiilawala says, illegal loggers from Masaka, Entebbe and Kampala have taken advantage of weak law enforcement to harvest timber from the forest reserves.

“Cutting timber from forest reserves is illegal. Police should arrest illegal loggers,” he says.
The reserves are also suffering due to lack of human resource.
Kalangala District has only six national forestry officers who are required to oversee more than 33 forest reserves yet they are constrained on resources.

“We need manpower and resources such as fuel for routine surveillance and rapid response,” the Bugala NFA Sector manager Sam Barekye, says.
Limited surveillance has also allowed encroachment on forest land and much of it is now being used as farm land.
In a meeting last month, Frank Bagyenda Kaka, an eco-tourism stakeholder in the Lutoboka Bay, accused some NFA officials of conniving with loggers to deplete reserves, adding “..our environment is being spoilt by people who are calling themselves forest managers”.

Kaka was responding to concerns of Kalangala District chairperson Willy Lugoloobi and RDC Caleb Tukaikiriza who said NFA officers were partly responsible for the continued depletion of forest reserves on the island.
“We either get serious and condemn deforestation or condemn forestry officials from gross mismanagement,” Tukaikiriza, said.
By 2008, Kalangala District had 13,471 hectares of forest cover, 621 of which were given out to for palm oil fruit farming.
Deforestation according to National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), could be the reason behind the drastic change in the climatic conditions in Kalangala.
“The district now experiences a dry season which had never happened before. This could be a result of the massive cutting of trees,” NAPE said in a recent report.
In a telephone interview Leo Twinomuhangi, the NFA officer in charge of lake shores, said they are investigating staff and illegal loggers who claim to have licences.
“No one has ever been licenced to log in forest reserves,” he said
However, NFA, according to available information, has been working on ways through which it can increase residential vigilance by introducing collaborative systems where residents are given authority to protect, preserve and engage in activities that conserve nature.
Currently, Towa Forest Reserve is undergoing a demonstration function to illustrate how the system works.
Non-government organisations such as Joint Energy for Environmental Project have joined environment protection programmes through tree replanting in Bugala with the view of achieving the 2015 Paris Climatic agreement review to eliminate adverse environment degradation.

Managing depletion
To save further depletion, the World Wide Fund for Nature in partnership with Kalangala District has started collaborative forest management schemes where people are taught how to manage and reserve forests.
The scheme, which seeks to start income generating activities such bee keeping, local herbs collection as well as eco-tourism to develop forests and improve nature for productivity, has so far only benefited people from Towa Forests Reserve in Mugoye Sub-county.
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