Eve Mashoo
10 July 2009
Kampala — With the increasing change in weather, Uganda needs to plant more trees in order to have suitable climatic conditions since the seasons are becoming catastrophic.
This was revealed yesterday by the European Union delegation Ambassador, Mr Vincent De Visscher, while officiating at the signing ceremony of a four-year tree planting grant at the Ministry of Finance.
It is a partnership between the European Union and the Norwegian government towards the funding of the Saw log Production Grant Scheme that has been running since 2004 and now extended up to 2013.
"Since we are faced with climate changes, there is need to materialise our promises. Therefore today we are doubling the sponsorship programme to Euros10 million (Shs29.3 billion) while the Norwegian government has offered Kroner48 million (Shs16b) in the next four years," Mr De Visscher noted.
The Minister of Finance, Ms Syda Bbumba, said there hasn't been meaningful tree planting in the country.
"Despite Uganda's great advantage in terms of excellent growing conditions for tree crops, there has been virtually no serious tree planting for over 30 years for tree planting," she said.
The 2004 Forestry Status Report by the EU-sponsored Forestry Resources Management Conservation Programme indicates that Uganda's current demand for timber is 80,000 hectares while the demand for mature timber plantations by 2025 are estimated at 150,000 hectares.
However, De Visscher noted that encroachers are still are huge dilemma to forests and called upon government to ban the lease of reserves to people.
Today the number of encroachers has grown from 180,000 to about 300,000 and these are a big threat.
According to Ms Maria Mutagambwa, the Minister for Water and Environment, a proposal to resettle encroachers elsewhere or compensate them is before Cabinet and hope it will be passed soon such that the forests can be conserved.
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