NFA seeks Lango cultural leader’s help to evict forest encroachers
Tekwaro Lango Prime Minister George Ojwang Opota (left) and the cultural group's paramoiunt chief Eng Dr Moses Michael Odongo together with his wife leave a meeting held in Senior Quarters, Lira City, on March 1, 2023. PHOTO/BILL OKETCH
The National Forestry Authority (NFA) has asked Tekwaro Lango Paramount Chief Eng Dr Moses Michael Odongo Okune to help them remove people from the area’s threatened forest reserves.
The agency, mandated by government to manage central forest reserves said hundreds of people have encroached on the gazetted areas in the Lango sub region.
Disturbingly, those encroachers have refused to voluntarily vacate, and have opposed plans by NFA to restore depleted forest reserves in Kole, Apac and Alebtong districts.
In Kole, NFA said more than 100 households have encroached on Ilera Forest Reserve in Ayer Sub County.
The 391-acre protected territory covers three villages of Bung, Okabo and Lela in Ilera Parish.
The encroachers have also opposed plans to restore Adero Forest Reserve in Alebtong District, Apac Central Forest Reserve in Apac Town and gazetted forests in Akokoro and Ibuje sub-counties, Apac District.
Ms Juliet Auma, NFA sector manager for West Lango, said they wanted to restore 6,000 hectares of depleted Maruzi Central Forest Reserve in Apac but NFA was facing resistance from the community.
“When our vehicles are passing, the locals shoot our windscreens with stones and they call us all sorts of names,” she said during the launch of a massive tree-planting campaign in Lango on Thursday.
Ms Gracious Aguti, NFA sector manager for East Lango, said: “We plead with Tekwaro Lango Paramount Chief to talk to the community so that they can get out of the forest reserves.”
In response, Eng Dr Odongo Okune committed himself to “ensuring that clan leaders across the Lango Sub-region mobilise the population and sensitise them not to encroach on protected ecosystems including, forest reserves, wetlands and riverbanks.”
According to Eng Dr Odongo, the Ministry of Water and Environment is doing a good work in supporting the efforts of the local community to protect the environment.
In fact, this publication has established that the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and the community started the process of restoring Oliduru Central Forest Reserve (CFR) in Ogwete Sub County, Otuke District, in 2018.
Before Oliduru CFR had been encroached, the forest reserve largely consisted of shea trees; that have since been declared an endangered species. Encroachment on the forest was a result of the illicit trade in charcoal from both within Uganda and across borders in Kenya, where charcoal traders prefer buying charcoal burnt from the shea trees, because it is a hard wood species.
