Uganda’s forests in the balance

04-07-2007

Mabira Forest Reserve in central Uganda is under threat from a proposed sugar plantation – Birdlife Partner NatureUganda points to Echuya Forest Reserve to show that what’s good for birds and biodiversity can also be better for people.

“All Africa faces a daunting challenge to reconcile the sustainable management of its natural resources with pressing development needs,“ said Dr Hazell Shokellu Thompson, Head of BirdLife International’s Africa Secretariat, speaking at a meeting organised by BirdLife and the African Protected Areas Initiative in 2005. He added that Africa’s protected areas are essential ingredients for achieving Millennium Development Goals such as halving extreme poverty, eliminating disease and providing universal access to clean water and primary education by 2015.

“It is widely acknowledged that biodiversity has a direct link to poverty, human health and well-being, and a wide range of biological resources provide food, medicine and alternative sources of income for rural communities,” he told the meeting. But he warned that the role of protected areas in development is insufficiently recognised. The situation at two of Uganda’s forest Important Bird Areas (IBAs) shows on the one hand the benefits of recognising the value of protected areas, and on the other the potentially disastrous consequences of ignoring them.

The Echuya Forest Reserve, an IBA in southwest Uganda, is emerging as a model of community forest management, showing that conservationists can work with local people for the benefit both of biodiversity and of the communities dependent on the forest. But the fate of Mabira Forest Reserve, one of the most biodiverse of Uganda’s remaining forests with over 300 bird species and nine species of primates, currently hangs in the balance as President Museveni and some elements of the government attempt to hand over a quarter of its area for sugar cane cultivation. Supporters of the “give-away” claim that sugar production will provide employment, and help the country’s economic development. Some of the sugar will be used to produce “power alcohol”, a biofuel to be mixed with petrol.

Echuya Forest

C. Magin

A Sustainable Organic Agriculture (SOA) technique in action near Echuya IBA.
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"We have moved the focus from the forest to the farm." —Ambrose Mugisha , Deputy Director of NatureUganda

The 3,400 hectares of the Echuya Forest Reserve are completely surrounded by cultivated land, which extends to the very edge of the forest. Over 100,000 people live within walking distance of the reserve and make use of its resources, which include bamboo, wood for timber and fuel, and medicinal herbs. Average income is around $150 per year, less than the half the dollar a day defined as absolute poverty, though subsistence farming and access to natural resources enable many people to live largely outside the cash economy. The long, narrow forest— the centre is nowhere more than a kilometre from the edge— surrounds a valley containing a permanent high-altitude swamp.

This is home to one of the largest remaining populations of the Endangered Grauer’s Swamp-warbler. Echuya has a list of over 100 birds. Many of them, like Ruwenzori Turaco Ruwenzorornis johnstoni, Collared Apalis Apalis ruwenzorii and Regal Sunbird Nectarinia regia, are resticted to the Albertine Rift Mountains Endemic Bird Area (EBA) of eastern Africa. But being on the road to Bwindi and Mgahinga National Parks, famous for the gorillas, it tends to be by-passed by ecotourists.

“Echuya may not be as diverse overall as other Ugandan forests, but in terms of the conservation value of the species represented, Echuya is ranked among the top 10% of the 65 sites visited by Uganda’s Forest Biodiversity Inventory Team,” says Dr Chris Magin, an Africa International Officer at the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK).

The forest’s ecotourism potential is just one of the sustainable livelihood projects being developed by the Echuya Forest Conservation Project, in which the RSPB is working with NatureUganda (BirdLife in Uganda). The project’s most urgent task has been to provide alternatives to the excessive use of the forest’s resources, which has seen the montane bamboo—which grows to 30 feet high in places—decreasing at an alarming rate. “By introducing fuel efficient, wood-burning stoves and planting alternative sources of wood and bamboo, we’re taking the pressure off the forest,” says Magin, who has been involved with the project since its inception. “So far, people have planted 100,000 tree seedlings and 3,000 bamboo clumps on their own farms.”

Other initiatives have involved training in sustainable farming techniques. “We have moved the focus from the forest to the farm, improving the economic yield through better farming practices in nearby communities,” says Ambrose Mugisha, Deputy Director of NatureUganda. The project is working with Kulika Uganda, an organisation that specialises in teaching sustainable organic agriculture. At the same time, people are being trained in erosion control and water harvesting, building ditches and banks under the direction of environmental officers and other local experts. Other initiatives include growing passion fruit, avocados and mushrooms for sale. A project to improve beekeeping and the marketing and sale of honey is particularly aimed at the Batwa, people traditionally dependant on forest resources, who were displaced by the National Forest programme, and who have been unable to find a place in the already overcrowded countryside.

The project has been helping Batwa families find land and livelihoods and is helping these often disenfranchised people to win legal and political rights. Previously, use of forest resources was policed by the National Forest Authority (NFA), but proved impossible to supervise. “There was nothing to stop somebody with a permit to collect ten bamboo poles a month going to the forest and collecting ten poles every day,” says Magin. The NFA officers were also criticised for sometimes being excessively harsh and preventing people carrying out legitimate harvesting. Now, the right of access, and the obligation to protect the forest, is coming under a series of Community Forest Management agreements. These give a village, or sub-village, exclusive access to a particular zone of the forest. Successfully implemented by BirdLife and its Partners elsewhere—for example at Kilim-Ijum in Cameroon, Arabuko-Sokoke in Kenya, and Sumba in Indonesia—these agreements are enforced by the communities themselves, who have an interest in ensuring that harvesting of timber and other forest products is kept sustainable. The project now intends to build thatched shelters and cooking areas, in an effort to entice Bwindi-bound ecotourists to stop and explore Echuya. A Birding Trail, with trained local guides, is planned.

Mabira Forest

Greg and Yvonne Dean/ WorldWildlifeImages.com

Doherty's Bush-shrike, an elusive presence in undergrowth at the edges of highland forests.
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"...for rainfall, for agriculture and domestic water, for wild food and meat, for wood and fuel and medicinal herbs—they all come from the forest." —Mr Mathias Kigongo, District Councillor for Naja Sub county, adjacent to Mabira.

Mabira, on the other hand, is already emerging as an ecotourism destination with the potential to attract more visitors than any other site in Uganda, since it is easily accessible from Kampala and Jinja. Already, 62 percent of tourists who visit Uganda’s forest reserves go to Mabira. Ecotourism is Uganda’s second largest foreign exchange earner. The Alam Group, one of Uganda’s biggest corporations, has established the Mabira Rainforest Eco-lodge at an estimated cost of US$2 million, and other ecotourism companies are applying for and receiving permits to build their own lodges in Mabira.

Mabira has benefited from large amounts of funding from the Ugandan government, the European Union and others, to restore over-exploited areas by replanting native trees. But, according to Mehta Group, majority shareholder in SCOUL (Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited), the forest is degraded and cannot produce valuable timber.

Achilles Byaruhanga, Executive Director of NatureUganda, says this argument does not bear weight. “The forest is recovering, but it will take time for valuable timber and other biodiversity resources to regenerate. We need young trees today to have timber tomorrow.” He says that Mehta’s economic arguments also don’t make sense. “The commercial value of the 7,100 ha of Mabira Forest today is estimated at over US$316 million, without including biodiversity values, environmental services or the land itself.”

The National Forest Authority last year estimated the value of the wood alone at 284 billion Ugandan shillings (US$167 million). This is probably an underestimate. Among environmental services whose value should be added to the commercial figure, are protection of the water catchment area for Lake Victoria, Lake Kyoga and the River Nile, and the forest’s role as a carbon sink—worth US$212 million at current carbon market prices.

Mr Mathias Kigongo, District Councillor for Naja Sub county, adjacent to Mabira, who was born and grew up near the forest, says sugarcane would create very little employment compared to the large numbers of people who would lose their existing livelihoods. “People are very dependent on the forest, for rainfall, for agriculture and domestic water, for wild food and meat, for wood and fuel and medicinal herbs—they all come from the forest. We feel the forest should not be touched, and the benefits from sugarcane cannot be equivalent to what we would lose. The government talks about creating an artificial forest, but it would be impossible to recreate the biodiversity of the forest.” In fact, he says local people feel that more land should be added to the forest, for the protection of the watershed for Lake Victoria and the Nile.

Ms Materida Mayengo, a councillor for Najembe subcounty, Mukono, says women in particular will suffer from the loss of the forest’s services. “It will be women who have to walk four or five miles each way to find water and search for firewood. In my sub-county we never have a month without rain, even in the dry season, because of the forest.”

Achilles says the forest already provides employment for many families in the form of tourism services and jobs as forest officers, rangers and other activities related to collaborative forest management. It is also a great educational resource, which all the universities and secondary schools in central Uganda make use of. He fears the impact of the new plantation would extend far beyond the 7,100 ha proposed.

“If a quarter of Mabira is chopped down the effect on the remaining forest will be far reaching, reducing the range of species, causing encroachment, erosion and siltation, and reducing its capacity to provide services, so there would be less water in rivers, less rain, less carbon intake, fewer tourists.”

The “degazettement” of Mabira is not only opposed by conservationists and the regional Buganda government (whose offer of alternative land Mehta has rejected), and by local people, churches, universities and cultural institutions, but also by members of parliament, government officials and even some government ministers. The NFA Board unanimously refused to issue a licence for the change of land use and were sacked. The Chief Executive of NFA resigned over these issues, along with the entire senior management team of the NFA. Achilles says that degazetting Mabira would be a breach of Uganda’s constitution and of the many international conventions that Uganda has signed and ratified, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.

He points out that Uganda’s official tourist organisation, Tourism Uganda, recently launched a campaign titled Uganda: Gifted by Nature. “Instead of just using this as slogan to promote our country, it is time we adopted it as a mantra to live by,” he says.

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