Kibaale loses 60,000 hectares of trees

Jan 01, 2009

KIBAALE district has registered the highest encroachment rate with over 60,000 hectares of trees cleared in 15 years.

By Ben Okiror

KIBAALE district has registered the highest encroachment rate with over 60,000 hectares of trees cleared in 15 years.

The executive director of the National Forestry Authority, Damian Akankwasa, said the practice had affected both protected and unprotected areas.

Akankwasa asked the Government to revoke the President’s order issued in February 2006, stopping eviction of encroachers from forest reserves.

He said phased and orderly evictions would start in reserves with high ecology value.

State minister for environment Jesca Eriyo blamed encroachers for abusing the order.

“Any further encroachment after the President’s directive should not be tolerated,” Eriyo said.

She expressed worry that Uganda may not achieve the 7th Millennium Development Goal on sustainable environment if encroachments continue.
Eriyo said some of the people had acquired permits and licences to plant trees but had instead grown crops, mined sand and cut trees.

She urged them to ensure that any investments were undertaken after a thorough environment impact assessment was done.
According to Akankwasa, from 1990 to 2005, Mukono was the second most deforested district with over 40,000 hectares destroyed.

Wakiso followed with about 25,000 hectares lost while Masindi came last after losing about 5,000 hectares.
He called for the rewarding of people with private forests to motivate them to plant more trees.

Akankwasa said only 667 hectares of mature trees exist in the country down from about 3,000 hectares.

However, he said, 20,000 more hectares had been planted by both the forestry authority and the private sector.
Akankwasa said since most of the trees were pine and eucalyptus that mature in 20 years, supply of timber would have exceeded demand by about 4,000 hectares.

Currently, whereas demand is at 5,000 hectares, the available supply is at less than 500 hectares.

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