Several senior and middle managers at the National Forest Authority resigned last week in protest at what they said was poor governance of the forestry sec-tor.
The country had nearly 5 million ha of forest in the early 1990s, but this had been cut to 3.6 million ha by 2005, a depletion rate of 2% a year, said NFA director Paul Drichi. “Forest and trees have been cut at rates that exceed sustainability levels.”
He added: “Population growth, unsus-tainable land-management practices, lack of economic opportunities and un-fair trade have increased demand for land for agriculture and livestock. The forest resource base in many reserves has been over-harvested and in some in-stances encroached upon, especially in woodlands.”
Despite this the government approved giving 7,100ha of the dense 32,000ha Mabira Forest Reserve to the Mehta group of companies for growing sugar cane. Several senior NFA officials, in-cluding the finance director and a re-gional co-ordinator, resigned or refused to renew their contracts.
One board member said: “The truth is we don’t support the give-away, but we have no powers.”
Board chairman Baguma Isoke said: “Some of them have resigned, but we have renewed 75 contracts. In my view it should not be subject to de-gazetting, but the law allows it.”
