Uganda’s Young Forest Champions driver restoration efforts

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A new generation of environmental stewards is stepping up to combat deforestation in Uganda, as the Young Forest Champion Workshop, a collaborative effort by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Uganda, the Ministry of Water and Environment, the National Forestry Authority (NFA), and Youth Go Green, concluded its three-day intensive programme on July 16, 2025, at Mpanga Forest.

This initiative is part of the UK-funded AIM4Forests (Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests) project, implemented by FAO’s Forestry Division across several African and South American nations. The program, which began in Kenya in 2021 under the IMPRESS project, successfully engaged young people in strengthening national forest monitoring systems.

Eva Ntara, facilitator of the Young Forest Champions Initiative, explained the genesis of the program: “The meetings that were happening were mainly involving older men. So, we wanted to involve the gender aspect and also involve younger people. And this is where the initiative was born.”

She highlighted the remarkable success in Kenya, where “10 young women… in 2024, had planted over 150,000 trees and they had mobilized over 10,000 community members.

“This impactful result inspired the scaling up of the program to other countries, including Uganda, Peru, Ghana, and Zambia”.

AIM4Forests is particularly active in Uganda, also supporting the UN REDD program to strengthen forest monitoring. The partnership with Youth Go Green, a youth-led organization based at the National Forest Authority, was crucial.

“We realized that they have engaged over 2 million youth. And that’s why we thought it would be nice to bring the Young Forest Champions who were selected out of the pool of 265 to come and see how the Youth Go Green are restoring forests with the help of the National Forest Authority,” Ntara added.

Edwin Muhumuza, Team Leader at Youth Go Green, welcomed the young champions to Mpanga Forest, a natural forest managed by the NFA. He explained that Youth Go Green serves as an umbrella platform for young people involved in climate change, environmental sustainability, and sustainable development goals.

“This is a field activity. It’s the third day of the Young Forest Champions workshop, which started on Monday. And this is our last day here,” he said.

The activity focused on forest restoration, which Muhumuza referred to as “tree planting” in local terms. He emphasized the timely nature of the program, supporting the government’s 40 million tree planting initiative.

“Youth Go Green decided to pick the 20 million trees as a target to be planted by young people in this country,”; he stated, adding that this contributes to the UN Decade of Restoration.

Muhumuza lamented Uganda’s significant forest cover loss, citing statistics that “about 95% of tree cover has been lost since 1990.” To combat this, Youth Go Green has set a target of planting 20 million trees in the next 10 years and is training these Young Forest Champions to “manage and traverse the entire country to monitor the trees that we have planted.”

To achieve this ambitious goal, Youth Go Green initiated a Sustainable Development Goals Marathon.

“This marathon, we have been running for different goals, but the most important goal is goal number 17, which talks about partnership for the goals,” Muhumuza explained.

Proceeds from this annual run, the seventh of which is scheduled for October 26, will support the establishment of regional nursery beds to ensure widespread access to tree seedlings for schools, churches, communities, and local government institutions.

Muhumuza stressed the urgency of the situation, stating, “Climate change is real. It’s been affecting everybody in every community… If a flood comes, it will wash away whoever it finds on its way. So, it means it is our collective responsibility to make sure that we put our natural resources, we protect our natural resources by all means.”

He appealed to the public, especially young people, to join Youth Go Green’s efforts through university chapters and school clubs. He also called for partnerships with the oil sector, revealing plans to “launch a greening school in the oil pipeline region” with EACOP.

Theopista Abalo, a student at Makerere University and a Youth Go Green member, expressed her gratitude for the opportunity.

“This privilege that FAO has given us through the program of the Young Forest Champion is something that I can’t say take for granted because it comes a lot with exposure both in the skills, the practical skills and also the soft skills that we get through the online facilitated courses and also this workshop that we have just had for the past two days.”

She believes the program is “grooming us for a future that is going to help our country also considering that forests are so important in combating climate change.”

Abalo specifically highlighted the practical skills gained in using forest monitoring tools like Open Forest and Ground.

“When we are able to come on ground and say we want to plant a certain number of trees and we’re able to monitor them long term so it’s removed this whole aspect of just plant a tree and leave it there so it gives us the need and it informs us that when we plant a tree we have an opportunity to monitor it over time so we are able to see that there is actually impact coming out of the work that we are doing which is generally important to be able to restore the degraded landscapes and also to conserve the forest that is already available.”

Ntara added that the selection criteria for the champions included knowledge of forestry, age between 18 and 30, and a focus on individuals from indigenous or rural areas and persons with disabilities. “Among the champions we also have one who is deaf. He has been taking part in the activities very well so that’s the part we had inclusivity, also gender balance and also not all of them were coming from Kampala, they were coming from all over the country.”

She further clarified that forest monitoring encompasses various aspects beyond just planting, including “growing trees, remote sensing, and measurement, reporting and verification.” The program aims to mentor the young champions on their diverse project ideas, which range from educating school children on climate change to working with churches on conservation messages.