Deep in the dense, green Mabira Forest Reserve, 40km outside of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, an environmental controversy has been building for months. The 30Â 000ha that make up Mabira, which was established as a nature reserve in 1932, are equivalent to about 60Â 000 football fields. The tropical forest is home to countless rare species of plant and animal life, but in the coming months it may have to make room for a sugar plantation, drastically changing one of the few protected areas left in the country.
Last August, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered the National Forestry Authority (NFA) to do a study into the feasibility of clearing 7Â 000ha, or nearly one fourth of Mabira Forest, in order to expand a sugar estate owned by the Uganda-based Mehta Group.
Mehta Group owns the Sugar Corporation of Uganda and applied to the president’s office for permission to expand its sugar-cane production to bolster the group’s Kakira Sugar Works products. The fact that Museveni would even consider cutting into Mabira’s territory instantly angered the NFA, Mabira residents and officials in Museveni’s government.
Ugandans living in areas around the reserve have been particularly angry. Since last autumn, there have been a number of protests against Sugar Corporation’s expansion, which have been forcibly broken up by the police.
‘We shall continue demonstrating peacefully, because Mabira is a cultural heritage,” said William Okwala, a street vendor who led one of the protests. ‘There are many tourists coming here. I don’t think they come because of the sugar plantation. If the forest is cut down, tourism will die completely.â€
Other residents say the forest provides a livelihood, food, shelter and medicine for the surrounding communities. But the president has said that jobs created by the sugar plantation would outweigh losses caused by the clearing of forest land. The government has also said new trees can be planted elsewhere, but there are no other suitable locations for the factory.
According to Museveni’s press secretary, Tamale Mirundi, it is a ‘question of utilising resourcesâ€. Mirundi said that although people would be negatively affected, compensation could be dispensed to help people find new sources of income. ‘We cannot just chase away people — that is not government policy.â€
Late last year, Olav Bjella, the director of the NFA, resigned citing disagreement with government over the allocation of more forest land to private companies. Museveni told the ministry of environment in February to look into the environmental and ecological effects of changing Mabira’s status as a nature reserve. Further progress in the project has been halted pending the completion of the ministry’s study.
The NFA study initially commissioned by Museveni concludes that the ecological and economic losses from destroying part of Mabira would be devastating. The report says the plan endangers 312 species of tree, 287 species of bird and 199 species of butterfly. Nine species found only in Mabira and nearby forests risk becoming extinct. Economic losses as a result of the destruction of part of the reserve include lost revenue from logging and eco-tourism, the main source of tourist revenue in Uganda.
Mabira is also a vital water catchment area for lakes and rivers in the country, including Lake Victoria, NFA spokesperson Gaster Kiyingi told the Mail & Guardian. Kiyingi added that further depletion of the forest by Sugar Corporation will reduce the water flow of streams and rivers and change national rain patterns. With water levels in Lake Victoria already low, such a change could decrease electricity production, and hydroelectric projects such as the River Sezibwa power plant, a proposed power-generating site, would be affected.
In addition to potential disturbances to the microclimate, destruction of the reserve could also violate major global conservation agreements to which Uganda is a signatory, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992). This requires the country to establish and maintain protected conservation areas. The European Union, in particular, has supported Ugandan conservation efforts such as the restoration of Mabira Forest.
‘In any hardwood forest in the country, this action should not be allowed,†said Zahid Alam, who is building an eco-lodge in the forest.
Mehta, Sugar Corporation’s parent company, has attempted to stay out of the heated public debate. It says it is concerned with economic development, not environmental protection.
The NFA recommends that Sugar Corporation be encouraged to allow individual growers to supplement its sugar cane production, or rent land from private landowners in the area around Mabira.
While the forest clearance has been temporarily halted as a result of pressure from environmentalists, Museveni has indicated that he approves of the expansion of sugar cane production into Mabira, though Parliament will have final approval.