Kampala — THE Uganda Wildlife Authority has started a tree-planting campaign in four districts bordering Mt. Elgon National Park. The move is aimed at restoring the forests in the heavily encroached areas.

The districts are Bududa, Manafwa, Sironko and Mbale. Mt. Elgon area conservation manager Adonia Bintoora said the authority would provide the seedlings to plant on the encroached park land and allow residents to cultivate crops on it until the trees mature.

"By the time the tree canopy pushes you out, a person would have harvested," Bintoora said. He was recently addressing residents of Tsekhululu sub-county in Manafwa during a consultative meeting at Nangese Primary School.

The indigenous tree species to be planted include mahogany, cordia, Elgon olive, albizia, prunus and supathodia. Bintoora said over 5,400 hectares of park land had been encroached on in the four districts, mainly for cultivation and human settlement.

He noted that Mt. Elgon, which was gazzetted into a national park in 1993 as a source of clean water and relief rainfall, was experiencing the worst encroachment among all the protected areas in the country.

"That is why we decided to evict all people from the park before availing the tree seedlings.When you fail to manage your seedlings, we shall kick you off the land and allocate it to somebody else," Bintoora warned.

However, the leaders of Tsekhululu sub-county asked the authority to hold the programme until the Mbale High Court ruled on the injunction filed by the Namisindwa Land Owner's Association restraining the authority from evicting residents from the area.

About 450 families are affected by the eviction.