In a bid to contribute to the overall welfare of the community in which Uganda Baati Limited (UBL) operates through Partnerships with key stakeholders, UBL has partnered with the National Forestry Authority (NFA) in a corporate forest restoration initiative.

Under the arrangement, Uganda Baati will plant 40 hectares of trees all over the country, 10 hectares per region; that is Central, East, West, and North, starting in September 2022.

This was reached at this week in a meeting of UBL and NFA.

According to UBL, the population of Uganda grows at 1.5 million per year meaning by 2025, the population will be 55 million.

Unfortunately, many people encroach on forests leading to one of the highest global deforestation rates.

Each year, nearly 3% of Uganda’s forests are cut down for fuel, agriculture, and to make room for an increasing population.

At the current rate of deforestation in Uganda, the country is likely to lose all of its forests in the next 25 years. The repercussions of these actions are clear to see. Besides the landscape almost being completely devoid of trees, the dry season has become longer and filled with more droughts. The loose soil has caused heavy rainfall to turn into deadly floods, while crops are producing less and less yield.

Current statistics by NFA also show in 1900 the Forest cover was 53%, by 1990 it had reduced to 24% and by 2017 it was at 12%. Between 1990 and 2017 Uganda lost over 2.4 million hectares of forest cover.

In 2019 there was a slight recovery in forest cover to 13%.

Riding on these figures, UBL intends to have the story change.