Planned carve-up of Uganda's protected forests sparks mass resignation

As negotiators meet this week at the United Nations to agree an international framework for sustainable forest management, experts in the field are warning that an illegal carve-up of protected forests is imminent in Uganda.

Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni has sparked a mass resignation of forestry officials by demanding that they hand over protected forests to commercial interests.

Lawyers and sustainable development experts have condemned the move, which would see rainforest cleared to grow oil palms and sugarcane.

Olav Bjella, executive director of the National Forestry Authority (NFA), resigned last week (7 December) and is preparing to return to his native Norway after Museveni gave him an ultimatum: sign over public forest land to private companies, or quit.

Bjella's departure followed the resignation of the NFA's board and four senior technical officers, who opted to sacrifice their jobs rather than be party to the forest clearance. These resignations represent a huge loss to Uganda's capacity to manage its forest resources.

Bjella was asked to give a 90-year licence for areas of forest reserve on Bugala Island in Kalangala District to palm-oil producer Bidco Uganda, whose parent company is based in Kenya.

The Bugala reserves are tropical rainforests designated as core conservation areas due to their importance for biodiversity conservation and their contribution to Uganda's hydrological cycle. Local people benefit from the forest both directly (extracting fruits, medicines and other forest products sustainably) and indirectly.

"This move contravenes the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, to which Uganda is a signatory," says James Mayers, head of the natural resources group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in a statement issued today.

"It also sends out a signal internationally that Ugandan forests are expendable just at a time when efforts to tackle climate change are bringing new attention to the pressing need to prevent deforestation."

The Ugandan government has also directed the NFA to grant the India-based Mehta Group rights to clear protected forest in Mabira to grow sugarcane.

Uganda's minister of water and environment Maria Mutagamba has defended the moves, stating that the clearance of forest to plant oil palms does not constitute a change in land use change because the oil palm plantations will eventually constitute a forest.

Last month, IIED and its Ugandan partner Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) held an international meeting of forestry experts to explore ways of making the law work better to promote social justice in forest management (see press release).

"We applaud the people who resigned," says Onesmus Mugyenyi of ACODE. "These are real patriots. They did it in defence of the constitution and set a precedent."

"ACODE plans to seek a court injunction to challenge any apparent illegal actions that undermine the integrity of our environment and threaten people's livelihoods," says Mugyenyi.

Mayers points out that Uganda's own Poverty Eradication Action Plan clearly acknowledges the role of natural forest in poverty reduction.

"The palm oil and sugar industries are resurgent internationally and, when astutely developed through smallholder production, can bring important benefits to countries such as Uganda," says Mayers. "But carving up protected forest is not the way to do it."

"This move makes a mockery of the palm oil industry's own commitments," he says. "Wilmar International, co-investor with Bidco in the project, is a member of the International Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, whose principles and criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil were endorsed in October 2005."

The Bugala project appears to contravene Principle 2, which requires compliance with all applicable local, national and ratified international laws and regulations. It also appears to break Principle 7, which requires that new plantings of oil palm do not replace primary forest or any area containing one or more high conservation values.

Representatives of governments, intergovernmental organisations and civil society are meeting this week in New York to negotiate a new agreement on international forest policy that will be present to the UN Forum on Forests for approval in April 2007.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Mike Shanahan

Press Officer

International Institute for Environment and Development

Email: mike.shanahan@iied.org

Tel: +44 (0)20 7872 7308

Fax: +44 (0)20 7388 2826

http://www.iied.org

NOTES TO EDITORS

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is an independent, non-profit research institute. Set up in 1971 and based in London, IIED provides expertise and leadership in researching and achieving sustainable development (see: http://www.iied.org).

IIED steers the Forest Governance Learning Group, an international effort to share experience and support better decision-making on forest issues. The group members include ACODE and other Ugandan organisations, as well as organisations in Cameroon, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, South Africa and Vietnam

(see http://www.iied.org/mediaroom/releases/061207.html ).

Advocates Coalition for Environment and Development (ACODE) is an independent Ugandan think-tank that does public policy research and analysis in sectors including governance, trade, environment, and science (see http://www.acode-u.org/).

A few years ago Butamira Forest Reserve in eastern Uganda was allocated to Kaira Sugar Works Ltd for sugarcane growing against protests by tree farmers in the reserve. Illegal occupation of the reserve has continued against a high court order in the case [ACODE and Another Vs. Attorney-General and Another Misc. Cause No.0100/2004]. The proposal to degazette Pan Upe Game Reserve in north-eastern Uganda has also been temporarily halted due to protests from local communities and civil society.