Will the green crusade take off?

By Gerald Tenywa

WHEN Maria Mutagamba, the environment minister planted a ceremonial tree at Kumi to commemorate the UN World Environment Day two years ago, she did not know that it would be accorded scanty respect. But when she returned to check on her tree, what she saw was not pleasant.

“Can you imagine that the goats had eaten my tree?” says a visibly disturbed Mutagamba. “I could not believe that the place as bare as Kumi could afford to lose a tree carelessly like that.”

It is not easy for government officials to promote the national tree planting campaign that is expected to start in March. The campaign is being spear-headed by Mutagamba and her two deputies, Jessica Eriyo and Jennifer Namuyangu to plant trees on International Women’s Day (March 8), World Forestry Day (March 21), Labour Day (May 1) and World Youth Day (August 12).

Paul Asiimwe, a land management specialist at the National Forestry Authority (NFA), says: “It is an intervention you have to look at with sustainability in mind. How do you plant the seedlings and leave them to any body to care for them?”

He noted that the campaign is not well-focused. “We use a top-to-bottom approach,” Asiimwe says. “This is wrong because we have to make people understand how important trees are to their livelihoods. It is also important to establish what sort of trees the community needs?” he says.

Mutagamba agrees with Asiimwe. “We have been working with the Ministry of Gender to mobilise women to plant trees in all districts and their own homesteads,” she says, “The idea is to teach Ugandans that tree planting is a process that should be continuous.”

But when The New Vision made a survey within the districts, asking women MPs across the country about the status of the national tree planting days, they seemed not to be aware of the campaign.

Woman MP for Kitgum, Beatrice Anywar, says she has a problem with the Government putting gender issues and tree planting together. “The gender issue has a different theme and the Government has been struggling to fund the celebrations at districts. What will happen when a theme on tree planting is added? This is going to create katogo (mixture) and tree planting as an issue will get lost.”

Anywar says Mutagamba has not guided the Government properly because there should be a policy on tree planting. There should be implementers assigned the task to ensure that able-bodied Ugandans plant trees and a monitoring team instituted, Anywar says.

Asked where the seedlings for planting are, Eriyo says a donor-funded initiative implemented by the ministries of agriculture and environment, will provide the seedlings.

However, sources within the farm - income enhancement project, say only 50,000 seedlings will be supplied at a venue yet to be confirmed.

But attention should also be given to the source of seedlings since good quality seedlings encourage people to plant more and could lure more people to plant trees.

“When someone sees good results after planting, that person is encouraged to plant more,” says Asiimwe.

Another critical issue is the choice of tree species. There are different agro-ecological zones across the country, meaning that not all tree species can grow anywhere. For instance, during the Commonwealth Summit in November 2007, foresters wanted to plant the musizi (measopsis eminii) at Kimaka Forest Reserve near the Nile Resort in Jinja, but this was a blunder since Kimaka is hilly and rocky.

The forestry department, which was replaced by the National Forestry Authority (NFA) and the district forestry services have had their fair share of failures too. One of the glaring mistakes was planting umbrella trees in a stretch that should have covered the 42km-stretch between Kampala City and Entebbe. The trees were left at the mercy of goats, cows and vagabonds. Today, a few remaining trees at Kawuku-Kisubi that survived, stand, reminding travellers from Entebbe about the failed attempt to make that stretch of road green.

Maxwell Kabi, an official with NFA, says tree planting should be taken seriously because if the 30 million Ugandans planted trees, the country would have over 17,000 hectares of trees, about a quater of the trees lost annually. He argues that this could be part of the green belt that would help to protect Uganda against the advancing desert, which has already eaten up parts of neighbouring Southern Sudan.

In addition to this, Kabi points out that trees will help protect the catchment areas, so that water bodies like Lake Victoria are shielded from silting when the heavy rains sweep soil into the water.

Ugandans should be covering their faces in shame because the country is importing electric poles from South Africa, yet it has the best conditions for growing trees. Data shows that trees in Uganda grow faster than in South Africa. Why do we then import trees from South Africa? The answer is rooted in poor planning and organisation.

Challenges of tree planting
An uphill challenge for tree planting investment is land. People always compare the value of the food crops and trees and this is a big challenge since tree planting is a long-term venture and not profitable in the short-run. The Government has land that is held in trust for the people of Uganda to plant trees, but this land is encroached on, making investment on government land insecure.

Other sources say the Government should stop double standards by supporting the tree planting day and abandoning the forest sector for the rest of the year. “How do you plant a few trees during the national tree planting day and look at encroachers with a blind eye?” an anonymous source says.

Three years ago, the protected forest reserves had 180,000 encroachers and this has almost doubled to 300,000 encroachers across the country.

Tree planting may seem to be a simple activity, but it is not. Mutagamba insists that her experience in Kumi will not be repeated. “Tree planting is not for ceremonial purposes and the public has to care for the trees,” she said. “We have a target of planting 2.5 million trees this year and hope to achieve it.”