The author, head of the Uganda Women Tree Planting Movement, participated in the IPALAC conference in 1999 and helped organize an on-the-spot course on plant propagation and nursery techniques in Uganda. Last year she came back to learn more.
Uganda is a predominantly agricultural country with 83% of its labor force is engaged in agriculture mainly at a subsistence level, although growth of export crops such as coffee, cotton, tobacco and tea is also carried out. In common with other African nations, Uganda's population has risen sharply during this century with an annual growth rate of 2.8% and currently stands at around 21 million people, predominantly rural with only about 8.7% living in urban centers. This has a huge impact on the natural resources of the country, especially the woody biomass. Uganda, despite having abundant natural resources, is ranked among the poorest countries in the world. Poverty is both a cause and effect of environmental degradation. Our people have short-term expectations and do not invest in sustainable resource management. They do not utilize these resources optimally because they are constrained by lack of production and consumption options. Consequently, they often use marginal resources and ecologically sensitive areas for survival, increasing environmental degradation in the process.
Land Use
The largest portion of the country is under woodland, bushland and grasslands, constituting 43% of the total land-use area and forms. Small-scale (subsistence) farming accounts for 34.7% of the total land area. The remainder of the area comprises open water bodies and wetlands. Although Uganda is predominantly an agricultural country, the average land holding ranges from only 0.4 to 3 hectares per typical household of seven persons and has been declining with the increasing population. This greatly affects the type of crops a household can grow on such land holdings. Trees have for a long time been components of most of the agricultural systems being practiced in the country. Their function as major providers of energy in the country cannot be overemphasized. Over 98% of the energy supply in the country is biomass derived from fuelwood and charcoal. For example, fuelwood for household, commercial, industrial and charcoal production for 1996 and 1997 was 20,051,000 and 20,778,000 tons respectively. Household fuelwood constituted more than 50% of these figures. Fuelwood demand is recorded to have increased by an astonishing figure of 67% between 1980 and 1992. The demand for firewood continues to increase with increase in population. Woodlands and bushlands and forests not under government protection have been extensively cleared to meet this demand.
At household level collection of firewood is the responsibility of women and school children, especially girls. Much of this firewood has been obtained from trees and shrubs during land clearing for agriculture. In the past, some of the firewood was collected from agricultural land lying fallow. However, fragmentation of land as a result of increasing population has reduced fallow periods and in most cases done away with it. With time sources of firewood have increasingly become scarce. This has resulted in women and children walking long distances in search of firewood, which has reduced their productivity on the farm since much of their working time is taken up in the search. Due to this trend, the number of meals per day has been decreasing in the rural areas, leading to malnutrition and poor health. The land tenure system discriminates against women. This makes it next to impossible for women's wish to plant trees to meet their family firewood needs to be accepted by the men who own land and, in most cases, do not see the planting of fuelwood trees as a priority since they do not suffer the inconvenience of walking long distances in search of firewood.
Mitigation Strategies
The government, recognizing the role of trees in the national economy, launched a National Tree Planting Program in 1992 to intensify planting throughout the country. Each year a National Tree Planting Day is designated during the main rainy season (April - June) when every able-bodied Ugandan is supposed to plant at least one tree on his land. These trees are supposed to be supplied by government-run tree nurseries. However, given financial limitation, this well-intentioned program has not been adequately funded in order to have the desired impact.
A number of non-governmental organizations (NG0s) have over time been formed in different parts of the country where a shortage of fuelwood has been identified by studies carried out by the National Biomass Study Project of the Forestry Department. These NGOs work with local communities and help them to set up community tree nurseries. They supply them with nursery inputs and technical knowledge. Due to limitation in land holdings per household, the focus has been on multi-purpose tree species, which can provide fodder for animals, poles and firewood, such as: caliandra, sesbania, leucaena, eucalyptus, grevillia.
The Uganda Women Tree Planting Movement (UWTPM) is an NGO founded in 1985 in recognition of the hardships faced by rural women, collecting firewood being one of them. The first activity UWTPM undertook was to mobilize rural women at district level into groups to receive training in tree nursery establishment and management techniques, establishment of woodlots for those with adequate land or boundary and hedge trees for those with limited land, including intercropping of trees under an agro-forestry system. Government forest officers offered technical assistance in the districts where UWTPM operated. Due to financial limitations six out of 35 districts were selected as pilot districts. To encourage tree growing in the private sector, a pilot wood farmers' project was started in government peri-urban forests in the six districts. Individuals or groups were given five-year permits, renewable, to plant up to five hectares of eucalyptus for poles and firewood, with the income from their sale going to the permit holder. UWTPM groups in these districts planted a total of 40 hectares that have been providing both wood and income to the members. UWTPM received funding from ODA, NORAD, EU, USAID, UNDP, UNEP, British Council and a number of other multi-lateral organizations to expand its activities to other districts after realization of its ability to mobilize women at grassroots level and train them in practical skills. UWTPM also used tree planting as an entry point to train women in other health and economic activities, such as sustainable agriculture, cooperative societies, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS awareness.
Provision of firewood for household needs remains predominantly a women's affair in Uganda. As such women are advocating for the right to own land under the new Land Act, 1998. This will enable them decide how much of the land should be set aside for growing trees for firewood which probably will remain the main source of energy for the majority of Ugandans who live in rural areas. Encouraging the growing of trees by individuals in support of government programs will save natural forests, constantly under pressure from neighboring communities, from destruction. Another intervention that UWTPM is promoting is the use of energy-saving cook stoves made out of locally available materials to save on the amount is firewood used. The commonly used three stone fireplace is not only wasteful, but in an enclosed cooking environment leads to air pollution and increases respiratory diseases among women due to excessive smoke emitted by the burning wood. Planting of fuelwood trees for commercial purposes is also being promoted in areas where households have large pieces of land. The wood farmers' pilot project being promoted by the forestry department has shown that trees grown for poles and firewood are capable of providing financial returns from lands that would otherwise remain unutilized. The task ahead is not an easy one. However, the increasing demand for firewood is reason enough to pursue the goal of making the rural woman self-sufficient in her firewood needs.