Abstract:

In this technical note the word forest means all types of tree-covered land including; high and
medium altitude forests, savannah woodlands, wetland and riparian forests. It is however, very
important to note from the outset that the definition of a forest suggested by United Nations
Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) is erroneous because if used, the entire
Uganda may be considered as forested. And yet as of now, out of the 1890 baseline estimate
(Table 1), remnants of tropical high (rain) forest are only found in four places (Karani 1993): the
majority occurs on the highlands and mountains marking the eastern rim of the western rift
valley. Second group of forests is found near Lake Victoria and its islands. Third and fourth
groups are found on Mount Elgon of the eastern region and the mountains of the north-east of
Uganda respectively. Many people together with key stakeholders like NFA and National
Environment Management Authority (NEMA) believe that there are 4.9 million hectares of
natural forests and woodlands in Uganda, which cover 24% of the land area. They contend that
eighty-one per cent (3,974,000 ha) of this is woodland, 19% (924,000) is tropical high forest and
<1% (35,000 ha) is forest plantations. Of course the bulk of the forests belong to private
ownership as mentioned below.
Nevertheless, scrutiny of all the past estimates of Uganda's forest cover portrays a high degree of
contradictions and, perhaps some form of misconception among the authors as statistics in Table
1 show. In Uganda forests are located either on government, leasehold or customary lands. Of
the total forest area, 70% is on private land, while 30% is in the permanent forest estate (PFE).
Only about 38% of private forests are tropical rainforests and the rest is forest woodland.
Management of the PFE which is estimated to be about 1,881,000 ha is as follows: 60.9% is
managed by the National Forest Authority (NFA), 38.8% is controlled by the Uganda Wildlife
Authority (UWA) while an insignificant 0.3% is owned and managed by the local governments.
Within the PFE 78% is under forests and woodland and the rest is mainly grassland.
Undoubtedly, two clear lessons can be learned from these statistics: namely, that the private
sector plays a critical role in Uganda forestry and the second lesson is that not all the gazetted
forest reserves contain trees — a factor which has often led to conflict in land use in Uganda; in
the sense that treeless portions of the reserves are always deemed to be better used for other
economic activities.