This year as the world marked the Forest Day in March, there was nothing to celebrate in Uganda thanks to recent developments in the country"s forest sector. What started as a simple protest against President Museveni"s giving away 7,100 hectares of Mabira Forest to Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited for conversion into a sugarcane plantation has turned into a nightmare. And fast forward April, a demonstration against the giveaway turned nasty and racial with Ugandans attacking Asians living in the city and killing one and injuring lots more. Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited is owned by Asian business tycoon Mahendra Mehta.
 
"Save Mabira Forest", reads a petition on the internet calling upon Ugandan to sign a petition that will perhaps save the country"s biggest Tropical Rain Forest from being destroyed to pave way for sugarcane plantations.
It is not the first petition; every Ugandan with a mobile phone has in the past received a text message or two and even more urging them to save the forest by signing the petition and not buying sugar produced by the company which is set to replace the forest with sugarcane plantations. It seems like it will not be the last but on whether it will produce results that remains to be seen because for once, Ugandans are speaking as one, petitioning as one and demonstrating against the giveaway of their natural forest as one.
 
"We, the undersigned, ..., do not believe that Mabira Forest should be degazetted by the Government of Uganda in order to plant sugar cane. Mabira Forest is part of our heritage and our children's future. Mabira Forest is a tropical hardwood forest which is proposed to be cut down for the production of sugar in Uganda. The forest is one of the most biodiverse forests remaining in Africa. It also has added value for the communities that inhabit it and surround it. The value of the forest to Uganda and her people is beyond the values of the trees, but it is also a frequented tourism site for bird watching, forest walks, and other activities; it has cultural and historical values; it significantly impacts the environment as a natural water filtration system and a natural regulator of global climate. We are asking the private investor to withdraw their request and take others up on their offers of land in Uganda to develop their sugar cane fields in other arable land," reads the petition. By the second week of April, over 9116 people had signed the petition put up by Ugandans who refer to themselves as "Save Mabira Forest".
 
Over the past few weeks, seven civil society organisations have sued the government over the planned giveaway and degradation of the forest. Ugandans are yet to see if their move will bring about any change. But in a country where the government has little respect for whatever decisions judiciary makes, not much can be expected to result from this petition. The petitioners include; Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode), Green Watch, Environmental Alert, Environmental Action Network, Nature Uganda, National Association of Professional Environmentalists (Nape) and the Anti Corruption Coalition Uganda. Interestingly the National Environment Management Authority is not part of the petitioners and seems to have kept out of this even if they claim to be a the forefront of protecting Uganda"s natural resources.
 
Mabira is not the first forest reserve to be given away to Museveni"s investors whom he holds in high esteem. Butamira Forest was already given away to Kakira Sugar also for conversion into a sugarcane plantation and before that government gave away Bugala Islands Forest Reserve located to Bidco Oil Refineries and its subsidiaries.
And now it is just more than protesting the destruction of the forest. On April 12, what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration in a bid by Ugandans to save the forest turned into a nightmare with crowds targeting Asians living in Kampala, attacking them and killing one Asian. It is clearly more than just the destruction of a forest by an Asian businessman as demonstrators held placards with messages that read, "Asians should go", "For one tree cut, Five Asians dead". Clearly the plan by President Museveni to give away part of the forest to an Asian Investor has sparked more controversy than he probably thought it ever would.
 
While I may not agree with the way the demonstration turned out, there is no doubt that like any Ugandan I am against the destruction of Mabira Forest. I cannot imagine driving to Jinja and where once there was a forest with trees, hundreds and hundreds of years old, there stands pathetic looking sugarcane plantations. And are we going to have to change our history books just because a rich Asian who wants to grow sugarcane wants a part of our heritage? Let"s look at the facts, Mabira Forest reserve is not just a forest. It is home to 312 species of tree, 287 species of bird and 199 species of butterfly. Recent Exploratory Inventories carried out in Mabira (for both the production and buffer zones) show that there are close to 2.5 million trees in every hectare. Mabira has wild Robusta coffee, dioscoria tubers, yams and other plants whose value is unknown." And being the only large forest in the bio-geographical zone of the Lake Victoria Crescent, it provides the only watershed for this already water stressed area. Mabira Forest Reserve is listed by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA). The forest contains over 300 species of bird, including the Endangered Nahan's Francolin Francolinus nahani.
The forest also supports nine species of primate, a recently identified new mangabey subspecies in Uganda, Lophocebus albigena johnstoni and a new species of Short-tailed Fruit Bat. Studies have shown that the potential revenue from tourism alone at Mabira was in excess of the costs of managing the Reserve.
Mabira Forest Reserve is located within 50 km from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, and is surrounded by four major towns used by tourists.
Other economic losses involved in 'giving-away" Uganda"s forests are thought to include lost revenue from selective logging, a local impact on livelihoods and possibly from changing climate; the forests help maintain central Uganda"s wet climate – removing them could bring about drier weather negatively impacting on crop yields, conservationists have argued.
Mabira is 29,974 hectares. For whoever destroys part of that forest, there is so much more to gain from the timber form trees that have been standing for hundreds of years. In fact I am beginning to believe the gossip going around that the President gave the forest away to Mehta with the understanding that he takes the land to grow sugarcane and harvested timber will belong to the President. After all you can imagine how much one stands to gain from cutting down 7,100 hectares of forest.
 
Destroying Mabira is the worst that could happen in Uganda today seeing that the country"s forest loss in the highest in Africa with an annual forest loss of 2 percent. Forest cover went down from 4.9million hectares to 3.6 million between 1990 and 2005. The country"s annual deforestation rate has climbed 21 percent since the end of the 1990s. 100 years ago forest cover in the country Winston Churchill described as "the Pearl of Africa" was 70 percent, today it is a mere 24 percent and more forests are still being cleared. In comparison, neigboruing Kenya loses less than 0.5 percent of forest cover yearly.
 
While it is reported that the leaders in Africa are realising the significance of protecting forests, President Museveni is doing the opposite. Even threatening those who dare protest against his short sightedness as far as forest reserves go. In fact hilariously, he claims that he is thinking of the future when giving away the forests. And it is clearly a future without trees and one where deserts will rule.
Many Ugandans view the clearing of one of the few remaining tracts of primary forest for sugar cane, a low value commodity product, as a poor use of a resource that could attract ecotourists and supply valuable ecological services. In fact for many Ugandans, they would rather have the forest and no sugar.
The destruction of Mabira forest will threaten some of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in Africa: Uganda is home to more than 5,000 plant species, 345 species of mammals, and types of 1,015 birds.
 
It has been said that the damage of cutting away part of Mabira Forest in terms of carbon credit is estimated at $316m. The value of the land is estimated at about $5m and the value of the wood at another $568m.
That means the Ugandan public stands to lose almost $890m (about 1.5 trillion shillings) as a result of the Government"s plan to degazette part of the forest.
This was calculated by the experts of the Environmental Alert, one of four environmental groups that have launched a massive campaign to stop the proposed give-away.
"The biomass of Mabira, the total weight of all trees, shrubs and grasses, is estimated at 300 tonnes per hectare," explains Dorothy Kaggwa of the Environmental Alert. "That is an equivalent of 550 tonnes of carbondioxide absorbed per hectare per year."
 
Carbondioxide emissions from factories, cars and planes trap the heat from escaping from the earth, leading to global warming. The Kyoto Protocol and the UN Convention on Climate Change, to both of which Uganda is a signatory, oblige countries to stay within certain carbondioxide limits. Manufacturers who exceed those limits can choose between installing costly remedy mechanisms or compensate by paying for planting trees or maintaining existing forests elsewhere, the so-called carbon credit.
 
Mabira forest receives more than 62% of all tourists visiting forest reserves in the country. Eco-tourism is the second largest foreign exchange earner and the potential for Mabira forest as tourist destination cannot be over-emphasised. There is already an ecotourism programme being run by the local within Mabira and an Ecolodge owned by Zahid Alam is yet to be completed. Interestingly since time immemorial, the foundation of Uganda has been its beauty, its nature known throughout the world it had Churchill marvel and immediately call this country to Pearl of Africa. That Pearl unfortunately is no more and if things continue the way they are, Uganda will soon be a shadow of its former self. It is hard to understand why a leader who only a year or two ago paid millions of US dollars to have Uganda feature on CNN and help us revive the tourism sector is the same one destroying the very bloodline that would see tourism boom. And it is the same President who gave his son-in-law"s company the go ahead to carry out a programme dubbed "Gifted by Nature" to sell Uganda and its beauty to the rest of the world.
 
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