Paul Byambugana Asiimwe

Today Uganda joins the rest of the World to celebrate the International Day of Forests.

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the 21^st of March as the day to celebrate and raise awareness about the importance of all types of forests with encouragement for all countries to undertake local, national and international efforts to organise activities focusing on forests and trees.

The theme for this year’s celebration focuses on forests and innovation. The theme cannot have been more timely as we focus on the achievements of the previous decades, the outstanding and emerging challenges and innovative methods required to address the outstanding challenges to forests and trees in Uganda.

Forests in Uganda contribute immensely to national development. They are especially important for communities that live around forests and poor people providing food, raw materials, medicine and environmental services like water, clean air and cultural resources.

Forests and trees provide a strong base for critical sectors like nature-based tourism, water provision, agricultural production, and energy (where over 90% of our energy requirement is supplied by biomass) and provides a basis for resilience and recovery in the event of shocks.

By 2016, the Ministry of Water and Environment estimated that the forest sector contributed 8.7% to Uganda’s economy.

With increased value from increasing nature-based tourism and wood from plantation forests and notwithstanding the COVID pandemic, it is estimated that the value of forest and tree resources to the economy has been on the increase in recent years. In addition, forests contribute to Uganda’s climate action by acting as carbon sinks for Green House Gases.

On this day, it is important to reflect and acknowledge that over the last 2-3 decades, there has been a massive decline in forest resources in Uganda. For example, according to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the forest cover declined from 24% in 1990 to 8% by 20015.

This massive decline has been a result of the massive conversion of previous forested areas into farmlands, and the conversion of wood in range lands and forests to firewood and charcoal to meet the ever-increasing domestic and institutional energy needs especially associated with urbanisation and huge influx of refugees.

It is critical to note that recent investments in improving the forest policy framework, financing of the sector, private sector investment in commercial forestry, boundary opening and marking, restoration of forest degraded areas, better staffing and capacity building of staff in responsible government agencies, district local governments, communities and education of the general public provides a glimmer of what can be achieved if all stakeholders work together.

For example, the Ministry of Water and Environment reported that forest cover increased from 12.3 to 13.3% between 2017 and 2019. While it sounds too early to celebrate the results, it demonstrates that through concerted effort, deforestation could be reversed.

In previous efforts, a lot of focus has been on securing forests in forest reserves and wildlife-protected areas. It is now time to focus on the causal factors leading to deforestation that originate outside the reserves and protected areas.

There is a need to refocus on how to meet the livelihoods of communities living around these areas and ensure such communities are supported out of poverty Stakeholders must address how to meet the current demands for fuel wood, construction timber and other forest resources either through establishing affordable and adoptable technologies, increasing efficiency in use of available resources or establishing alternative sources of the same materials.

In addition, investments in establishment of necessary infrastructure notably forest boundaries, staff infrastructure, roads and deployment of adequate staff with the right skills and attitudes are paramount in increasing and sustainably managing our forest resources. This must move alongside strong transparency and accountability in the sector.

There is a great need to address new emerging challenges such as invasive species that are displacing natural forests and woodlands affecting wildlife and biodiversity and impacts of climate change on forest areas such as regular wildlife fires and impacts of mining and refugee influx.

The private sector in forestry must continue to be supported to grow. While over 100,000 hectares have been established by the private sector, a predictable investment policy environment such as requirements for forest products export, requirements for investments and value addition need to be easy to apply.

While the private sector has been critical in establishing a sizeable forest estate, it is now time to focus on downstream processing and markets as a way of ensuring sustainable investment in the sector.

Opportunities also exist for the private sector to invest in other new value chains such as nature-based tourism, and beekeeping—innovative products, technologies and financing to support the sector.

Lastly, since people are looking for forests and trees to meet their livelihood needs, we must bring trees to people. A strong integration of forests and trees on people's farmlands, schools, community gardens and households are critical to reducing pressures on existing forest resources.

Trees promoted on community farmlands should have the capacity to meet social needs such as improved nutrition, economic needs like incomes, firewood and building materials as well as ecological needs such as nitrogen fixation, biodiversity protection and amenity values.

The writer is a Programme Manager for Productive Sectors, Environment and Climate Change at the Embassy of Sweden, Kampala