Rotarians to plant 10,000 trees in new conservation drive

ENVIRONMENT   CLIMATE CHANGE

In the bid to conserve the environment, Rotarians have embarked on the planting of 10,000 trees around the country before the closure of this year.

According to Rotary Club of Kampala Central president Charles Kiiza Lwanga, the country is losing its green as people encroach on forest reserves for settlement due to the increasing population.

"Wetlands and forest land are being encroached on which is fueling climate change. There is a need for all Ugandans to replace trees cut with new ones to avoid global warming," he said.

Recently, Rotarians planted 5,000 trees at Nyenga Seminary, Buikwe district which is part of the 10,000 trees they will be planting in other districts like Bugiri and Luweero.

 While leading the tree planting at Nyenga seminary, Lwanga said their club is spending over shs18.5m collected from Rotarians for the exercises.

He, however, said there is a need for more sensitization of citizens on the effects of deforestation if the country is to retain its green environment.

Lwanga said children should be encouraged more to engage in environmental conservation especially in tree planting to nature an environment-friendly future generation.

Lwanga further called on the government to encourage biogas as a source of energy to prevent massive cutting down of trees.

 Nyenga Seminary vice Sector Fr. Emmanuel Mukasa said trees would be conserved for a good environment however there are no affordable alternatives for cooking.

"We depend on firewood as cooking energy in the seminary that caters for over 295 people, planting of own trees will, therefore, help us on reducing the cost of firewood as we will be getting it from our own farm," he said.

What others say

15- year-old Kibuuka Sebastian said there should be a fully empowered police unit specifically for forests' protection. He further said people should embrace briquettes made out of rubbish to replace charcoal and firewood.

Mathew Arinaitwe, 13 said the government should come up with a policy that forces everyone to replace a tree cut with another one.

Arinaitwe said people should be requesting for permission from the government before cutting trees to preserve trees especially rare species