On Sunday, NTV broadcasted an in-depth investigative story on the depletion of Mabira forest which showed the extent one of the country’s largest forests was being destroyed by illicit logging. Members of Parliament expressed their concern over the rate at which forests are being depleted. “And the culprits who are hiding behind that have political God-fathers in this country. So however much we try to fight them legally you cannot manage them. Why? Because they use political means to do whatever they are doing.” Said, Lutamaguzi Ssemakula – MP, Nakaseke South.
The Chairperson of the Parliament’s Committee on Natural Resources Alex Byarugaba said the Committee was going to look into the issue over the destruction of the country’s forests. “We are going to embark now on how to save our forests as Parliament we will do our best.” The Committee Chairperson also blamed the National Forestry Authority for not doing their work. “We even put in quite a lot of money in NFA to try and boost their capacity to play their role, unfortunately, there is no action being taken.” Said, Alex Byarugaba – Chairperson, Parliament Natural Resources Committee.
Geoffrey Kamese from the National Association of Professional Environmentalists said the country’s forests are endangered as up to 100,000 hectares of forest cover are lost annually. “What is also worrying is that even the rate that we are talking about is not really scientifically proven because many of our forests are degraded without the knowledge of our authorities that are responsible for managing forests. So we may be putting the rate a very low level yet the rate is actually very high.” Said, Geoffrey Kamese – Senior Programme Officer, NAPE. Kamese said this will have adverse effects on both natural ecosystems and human life. “If you want to realize what this means, you go around the country and see how much sand is out there and how many people are being affected.”
Meanwhile, the Ag. Executive Director of the National Forestry Authority Paul Musamali said the authority does not have the money to recruit the number of officials required to adequately supervise the management of the country’s forests. “As we talk our budget is about 28 billion shillings for the annual budget this year. But if we are operating in a normal way or in an adequate way we would be having an act of 60 billion Uganda shillings that would enable us to deploy more staffs, deploy more vehicles but what management is doing is to make sure that we do our best with the limited resources.” Said, Paul Musamali – Ag. Executive Director, NFA.
