Uganda's forestry regulations are long overdue

By Anna Amumpiire

According to Uganda’s National Forest Plan 2013, the forest cover has continued to deteriorate with an average annual deforestation rate of 1.8%. 

Forest legislation is an important means to ensuring sustainable forest management. Since the enactment of the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act in 2003, Uganda’s Forestry and Tree Planting Regulations, provided for in the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act, have never been passed.

Absence of the Forestry regulations, therefore, makes it impossible to effectively enforce adherence to the provisions of the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act by the concerned stakeholders.

A report on National Timber Trade and Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Solutions for Uganda by World Wide Fund for Nature (2012) indicated that about 80% of the timber in the Ugandan market is illegal with a serious financial loss to government estimated at about sh21b per year through unpaid taxes.

This illegal trade is attributed to among other reasons out-dated and confusing procedures and chain of custody systems both of which can be resolved by the updated Forestry Regulations.

Irregularities in the licensing systems, encroachment on forest land, unsustainable levels of harvesting forest products and illegal trade in forest products are other challenges facing Uganda’s forestry sector that need to be regularised by these Regulations.

Section 92 of the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act provides for the formulation of Regulations for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this Act.

The Regulations are intended to ensure the sustainable management and utilisation of forests including providing guidance and measures for; trade in forest products, certification of forests, revenue collection, granting/suspension of licences and determination of fees, tree planting, growing and management among other forestry practises. However it has taken more than 10 years to have these regulations in place.

Although the process to formulate these regulations kicked off some time in 2006 and the subsequent review of the draft regulations in 2011/12 with input from stakeholders, the regulations are not yet finalised!

The National Forestry and Tree Planting Act was designed to ensure sustainable forest management and, therefore, non-compliance of this law undermines sustainable management of these resources and reflects poor forest governance.

The Ministry of Water and Environment/Forest Sector Support Department should, therefore, ensure that these Forestry Regulations are concluded, approved and gazetted promptly, before we lose more of our forest cover including loss of income from under-collection of taxes or fees.

The writer works with Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE)