Project Greening Uganda is set up to reforest parts of Uganda on a large scale as this has multiple social and ecological benefits: it helps in food production, fights the effects of global warming because trees help fight droughts, avoid flooding during heavy rainfall and cool areas where there are a lot of trees, while securing atmospheric carbon in new biomass. It can also provide charcoal for cooking without touching old growth trees which are vital to protect local wildlife like gorilla’s and chimpanzees, to name just two famous species. The forests where these beautiful creatures live are a five hour drive away over very wobbly dirt roads at speed of maximum twenty kilometer per hour.
The set-up is simple, with little investment a million tree saplings are grown from seeds and irrigated till they can be planted in assigned areas. Local communities are involved in the planning and assignment of locations for planting. Local labor, mainly women make a small living out of helping during the nursery stage of the saplings. This phase can be carries out for about 15 Ugandan shilling (UGX) or about 0,37 eurocents per sapling. Schools and volunteers are involved in the planting phase (the rainy season, normally from half September to half December, which can be done for about 50 UGX or approximately 1,1 eurocent per tree including all costs for tools, transport, supervision etc.
Vision and Objectives of the Greening Uganda Group:
● to plant 1 million trees 2017-2019.
● to increase food production, improve local economy and nutrition
● to protect the environment and
● to create awareness of good usage of swampy areas
● to make a contribution to reduce global climate change
● to scale this up to 10 – 100 – 1000 million trees if possible
Sub-counties of operations:
Steps towards the goal:
● by close of 2017 we had planted 130,000 trees
● currently, in 2018, up to March 15, we have planted 38,000 trees for a running total of 168,000 trees. Our plan is 380.000 trees in 2018.
● in 2019, we want to reach the goal of 1.000.000 trees and do the preparations for upscaling the project.