Climate change committee seeks to activate tree fund

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A new standing committee set up to review and advocate for climate change issues in Parliament is considering the operationalization of the tree fund as its priority action. The committee which was unveiled today is led by Ora County MP Lawrence Songa.

The committee will initiate and scrutinize bills, coordinate activities and make recommendations to Parliament on the legal and institutional mechanism to address climate change. It was established against a background of challenges the country is facing in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Members of the committee have observed that Uganda has a tree fund which could bring life to the forest cover in Uganda, which has been depleted to about 8 per cent from 24 per cent in the ’90s, mainly as a result of human activity.

The Tree Fund was established through section 40 of the National Forest and Tree Planting Act 2003 but has never seen the light of the day.

Committee Chairman Lawrence Songa is optimistic that the Tree Fund could support tree funding countrywide adding that Uganda needs to borrow a leaf from Ethiopia, which planted 350 million trees in one day.

He added that the committee would be at the forefront of rejecting investments that encourage disasters like giving away forests and fight encroachment into eco-sensitive areas. He also hinted in the need for strategies to control sand mining on lake shores, an activity that threatens Uganda’s fish stocks.

Uganda loses up to 200,000 hectares of forest cover annually.

*****

URN