Nema tasked to ensure Bugoma forest is restored

As Uganda marked World Environment Day yesterday, the Save Bugoma Forest Campaign (SBFC) wrote to the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), requesting that the authority avails them and the general public with a copy of the approved restoration plan for Bugoma Central Forest Reserve.

In their statement, SBFC demanded that the ongoing destruction of the said forest be immediately stopped by Nema since it’s a government body charged with management of the environment.

Bugoma forest is found in Kikuube District in Western Uganda.
But Ms Naomi Karekaho, the spokesperson of Nema, said some of the claims raised are merely false alerts.

“You need to be aware that there are activists out there. Sometimes they create unnecessary alarms. We visited Bugoma forest and there are some things we are aware of but some things in the statement are false,” Ms Karekaho said in a telephone interview.

SBFC consists of the forest host communities, civil society and private sector entities whose main objective is to defend Bugoma from land grabbing, sugarcane growing and oil threats.

Further in their statement, SBFC called upon Nema and the National Forestry Authority (NFA) to ensure that Hoima Sugar Limited (HSL) halts all its destructive activities in Bugoma forest.

According to the SBFC, the authority illegally and irregularly issued an environmental and social impact assessment to set up a sugarcane plantation on 9.2sq of the forest and an ecotourism site on 1.97sq among others.

Ms Karekaho, while responding to the aforementioned allegations, said the issuance of a certificate is dependent on whether or not the report issued meets the criteria.

“The process of issuing a certificate is simple. A developer might want to carry out an activity on a piece of land, so he hires a private accessor to do that job. Nema then looks at the report and if the said report meets the criteria, should we stop the person?” she said.

Mr Dickens Kamugisha, the chairperson of SBFC claimed over eight months had since elapsed since Nema ordered Hoima Sugar to submit a restoration plan but the Authority has not yet publicly shared it.
But Ms Karekaho hit back at SBFC, saying Nema is not an agency that regulates land use.

“That land belongs to Bunyoro Kingdom. It was a forest but then it was given to Bunyoro Kingdom. Nema’s job was to do an assessment of sugar on the plantation. As environment regulators, we did what we were supposed to do,” she said.

Several attempts to reach out to Mr Raja Sekar, an official from Hoima Sugar Company, were unsuccessful.
When we sent him WhatsApp messages, he asked that we share the questions with him such that he may respond, which we did. But he had not responded by press time.