Government plans to convert thousands of hectares of rainforest on an island on Uganda’s Lake Victoria into a palm-oil plantation have been shelved, officials said on on Saturday.
Environment Minister Mary Mutagamba said the government abandoned the idea after the Kenyan company Bidco that applied for the licence backed off, fearing negative publicity about the project would harm its efforts to gather funding.
”Yes, we have stopped processing a licence and the company will have to look for an alternative,” Mutagamba said by telephone.
Bidco managers in Uganda, however, denied that they were seeking to use the land on Bugala Island where the rainforest is located. They said they had simply applied for land for the plantation and that they were still waiting for a government response.
”We are not interested in a forest reserve,” Kody Rao, manager of Bidco subsidiary Palm Oil Uganda, told the government-owned New Vision newspaper’s Saturday edition. ”What we need from the government is land and we are still waiting for that land.”
President Yoweri Museveni has faced opposition, including violent protests, over proposals to give private firms the right to bulldoze protected forests.
The government recently suspended a separate proposal to turn another forest into a sugar plantation after violent public protests in which three people were killed.
In December, Norwegian environmentalist Olav Bjella quit as National Forestry Authority chief after refusing to implement Museveni’s order to approve the clearance of that forest, saying it was against his conscience and the laws of Uganda.
Environmentalists say Bugala Island is home to rare species of animals and plants. — Sapa-AFP