The National Forestry Authority (NFA) has hailed World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF) for supporting the country’s restoration efforts.
Speaking on Thursday, the acting NFA Executive Director, Stuart Maniraguha said WWF has played a key role in Uganda’s forest and green cover restoration efforts.
“We thank WWF for support to NFA in terms of equipment and capacity building but most importantly rehabilitation of eco-system. For many years we have been receiving support from WWF for improvement of management of forest reserves within the Bugoma- Kagombe landscape. This has been ongoing for three years,” Maniraguha said.
He said the main focus of the collaboration entails restoring central forest reserves, opening forest boundaries and engaging with communities to make meaningful forest management by giving them alternative livelihoods to reduce dependency on forests.
“The collaboration has also been in form of helping improve the capacity of National Forestry Authority in responding to threats of encroachment through smart technology and enhanced mobility.”
Philip Kihumuro, the manager in charge of the natural forest regeneration finance carbon absorption(FRFCA) project in the Albertine region said they have reached immense achievements in the last three years.
“We have so far restored 1126 hectares of degraded forests in Kagombe central forest reserve, established 480 hectares of woodlots with community members but also working with communities to improve their livelihoods,”Kihumuro said.
He said the communities have been helped to start their own village saving associations where they save and later borrow from at low interest rates.
Kihumuro explained that the group members are involved in planting trees and weeding them where they earn money that they save.
“Close to $170,000 has gone through the 39 groups within the communities which goes a long way in improving their livelihoods. By earning something, the group members take pressure off the forests.”
Fleming Voetmann , the vice president for External relations and Sustainable at VELUX A/S that funded the project said they are impressed by the progress so far.
He said they will be looking for more areas of cooperation with WWF and National Forestry Authority.
