Environmentalists and residents within Masaka City and District launch a campaign intended to end the continuous depletion of Mujuzi Central Forest Reserve.
The forest gazetted by National Forestry Authority-NFA as a central forest reserve in 1938, covers approximately 6,079 hectares according to Statutory Instrument 146-1 of the Forests Reserves Declaration Order.
Although it has for so long been threatened by local and foreign encroachers, the community has always stood strong to protect it over decades amidst limited attention from the concerned government entities.
A survey conducted by Biodiversity Conservation Foundation-BCF indicate that Mujuzi forest has a lot of distinctive indigenous tree species and endangered wildlife, birds and insects.
It has served as a community hub for natural thymes and a myriad of raw materials for craft making and other income generating activities contributing to the socio-economic welfare of the population.
The forest stretches along the shoreline of Lake Victoria connecting various landing sites such as Namirembe, Malembo and Ddimo where it serves as a sieve for the lake.
BCF has established that the ecosystem of the area is suffering immense pollutions resulting from the different entrepreneurial development such as commercial agricultural practices involving the use of pesticides.
Agricultural fields connect directly to the lake’s catchment space without any guidance from experts which risks the lake turning into deposition point.
Clearance of wetlands and forest cover has made it easy for the surface runoff moving along with fertilizers and chemical nutrients, plastic materials and others to enter the waters directly yet they would have been trapped, sieved by the flora cover before trickling down into the lake.
With evident dire consequences of climate change, the community is in fear of constant reduction in precipitation levels, natural calamities like prolonged dry spells among others in the area, worse still all other benefits of the forest are to remain myths if urgent intervention to save this ecology is not crafted and implemented.
BCF’s concern is instigated by the fact that Uganda’s forest cover is shrinking at a high rocket speed exposing the country, whose backbone sector (Agriculture) is almost entirely rain fed. This simply means that neglecting conservation is a route to death.
BCF’s efforts are to be directed towards calling upon all concerned players to swiftly respond with action by raising a red flag to encroachers; on top of that advocacy and legal steps will be used as well as sparking legally accepted community action against the degradation plans.
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