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Mabira restoration: Government to buy off privately-owned land
A big tree that was cut for timber in Mabira Forest
KAMPALA- Government is in advanced stages of buying privately-owned land in 15 villages that occupy 2,700 kilometres of Mabira Forest Reserve.
Speaking to journalists during a media dialogue on the forthcoming International Forest Day on March 23 this year, the Director Natural Forests Management at the National Forest Authority (NFA), Mr Levi Etwodu said government is set to buy the land forest from citizens.
“We are already budgeting to make sure we restore part of Mabira Forest which is currently being occupied by a number of villages. Population increase in these villages means that people will continue encroaching on forest land,” Mr Etwodu said.
Mabira Forest which is located in Buikwe District in central Uganda, is a rainforest covering about 300 square kilometres (29,974 hectares).
It has, however, been disappearing thanks to human activities like charcoal burning and human settlement, among others.
“We have come up with a mechanism that ensures that whichever dormant land is available in the forest reserve is given to farmers to plant trees there and then. When the land remains dormant, it encourages encroachers to settle on it,” he said.
A 2016 research on forest cover trends by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) indicated a diminishing forest cover from 24 per cent in 1995, 18 per cent in 2005 to nine per cent in 2015. The report cited the biggest cause of the falling trend to deforestation stood at 95, 000 hectares per year.
Mr Denis Kavuma, the General Manager Uganda Timber Growers’ Association said people have to take advantage of the grants from FAO to grow trees.
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