Uganda

Uganda like many other African countries is in the campaign drive of promoting plantations under the guise of creating income and other benefits for Ugandans, destroying a lot of natural resources including forests, wetlands and up hills. In the past ten years, thousands of hectares of forests have been destroyed and replaced by monocultures.

Oxfam International recently released an eye-opening report on the activities of UK-based New Forests Company (NFC) in Uganda. The company currently plants and harvests timber on 27,000 hectares of tree plantations in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Mozambique, and has deals in these countries totalling around 90,000 hectares. It claims that the timber produced can satisfy all the population's needs, thereby preventing logging in natural forests. In Uganda it has planted around 9,300 hectares of pine and eucalyptus trees since 2006, on land licensed to the company by the government.

The UK-based New Forests Company is establishing tree plantations in Uganda, Mozambique and Tanzania. The company states that “Whilst based on commercial forestry economics, our projects are underwritten by carbon credits … in compliance with the Clean Development Mechanism. This means that its profits from the sale of wood will be increased by selling “carbon credits” to polluting industries in the North.

BIDCO, the largest and fastest growing manufacturer of vegetable oils, fats, margarine, soaps and protein concentrates in East and Central Africa is investing in a multi-million dollar oil palm plantation on Bugala islands in Kalangala. The company counts with investment partners including Archer Daniels Midlands of America, Wilmar Group of Malaysia and Josovina of Singapore.

The Batwa (often described as “pygmies”) are widely regarded as the original forest-dwelling inhabitants of the Equatorial forest in the Great Lakes Region comprising Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Uganda, they lived in the forest of the Mufumbira Mountains in the South West. They were hunter-gatherers that relied on the forests for their livelihood and found in the forests the sustenance for their spiritual and social life. 

Oil palm and rubber plantations occupy extensive areas in many countries in tropical Africa. In spite of their social and environmental impacts, until now they have received scant attention both at the national and international level.

The current development patterns and inequities in the country present a number of forest management challenges.

Mt. Elgon is an extinct volcano that is the fourth highest mountain in East Africa. The Bagisu and Sabiny are the two ethnic tribes around the mountain. It has a total area of 2,504 Km² in which the protected area of Mt. Elgon covers approximately 2045 Km² with 1145 km2 comprising the Uganda side and 900 km² comprises the Kenyan side. (Source:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Elgon_National_Park)

"My house and goats are dead, my house burned to the ground," recounts a Ugandan farmer at the start of this downloadable film. "My coffee and banana trees were chopped down, and new trees were planted in their place." "We should bring developing countries on board using a variety of means," counters a Dutch businessman and carbon trader.

In February 2008, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Uganda People's Defense Forces evicted more than 4,000 people from the Benet and Ndorobo communities living in Mount Elgon National Park in East Uganda. People's houses and crops were destroyed, cattle were confiscated and the people were left homeless. They found shelter where they could: in caves and under trees. The luckier ones stayed in a primary school or moved in with their relatives.