Answer to Uganda’s forest conservation needs boosting

Dr Godfrey Bahiigwa, a commercial tree planter at Kirangwa Forest Plantation in Mubende District, is afraid to even put his total production costs together since he started growing trees on his 260 ha in 2004. He says the figure is frighteningly high.
For a rough estimate, in the last one month alone, it cost him Shs11m to weed 130 ha of the plantation. He buys seedlings at Shs7 million a kilogram and employs 40 to 70 people at any one given time.

“We are given Shs850, 000 by the Sawlog Production Grant Scheme for maintenance in the first six months of planting, and another Shs850, 000 after one-and-half years,” says Bahiigwa.

“But this money is too little and does not even last the first six months , it is very costly to clear land, plant and weed, we hope that the money can be increased and the funding from SPGS does not come to an end so soon,” he says.

With a bulging population and an increasing demand for fuel and timber, it is estimated that Uganda needs at least 150,000 hectares of planted forest to meet its population’s wood demands in the next few years if natural forests are to be kept intact.

But for now, data from the SPGS, government’s initiative for commercial tree planting, indicates that only 27,000 ha have so far been planted, leaving a huge deficit of 123,000 ha, of which the population inevitably meets  through deforestation and forest degradation.

This timber deficit, according to  SPGS Chief Technical Adviser Paul Jacovelli, can only be met through government commitment to support commercial tree planting and will also provide the much needed firewood and charcoal for household energy, electricity poles, rural employment, export savings, attract investment, store carbon among other benefits while preserving the country’s natural forests.

“Uganda has not had much support in commercial tree planting with over 80 per cent planting done by the private sector, the last trees were planted in Idi Amins’ time and have since been harvested and yet more than 90 percent of the country’s population relies on wood fuel, natural forests should be left alone and production of wood fuel done elsewhere,” says Mr Jacovelli.

Although the European Union and the Norwegian government has funded the SPGS projects with over Euros30 million in the past eight years, the number of farmers engaged in tree planting remains low at only 300 and the cost of growing the trees remains high yet the SPGS funding ends in 2013 yet issues of high costs, pests, presence of only one sawmill and fire remain an enigma to the farmers all over the country.

The Head of the European Union in Uganda, Dr Roberto Ridolfi, however, said he is satisfied with the project but said the project needs further government support for it to meet its targets.

“The demand for timber and other forest products exceeds domestic supply and therefore Uganda desperately needs to establish a substantial and sustainable timber resource, with the 27,000 hectares established to date with SPGS support, much more needs to be done as this number is far short of the country’s basic requirement of 150,000 ha,” Dr Ridolfi said.

With only one saw mill in the whole country, however, Mr Jacovelli says investment must be made in sawmills to avoid monopoly in processing the wood. The Director of the Wetlands department, Paul Mafabi, said government in the last financial year contributed Sh1 billion to the SPGS and hopes that this financial year at least the same amount should be extended to the project as well.

“We have seen the SPGS as a model that works  to conserve forests and we are looking forward to expand beyond growing for timber, we have also leased some parts of Central forest reserves to commercial tree planting we just hope that more money will be provided in the budget to support the programme,” Mr Mafabi said.

For now, statistics show that Uganda loses at least 90,000 ha of forest every year to degradation where as 97 per cent of the population relies on wood for energy.