The project, according to a statement from ERA, is implemented in partnership with the National Forestry Authority (NFA), and is part of ERA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative.
ERA is targeting to restore 60 hectares of forest cover in four central forest reserves located in the catchment areas of rivers that host hydropower plants/projects in the central, western, northern and West Nile regions of Uganda.
According to the State of Uganda’s Forestry 2016, the latest officially available figures, “the country has been losing on average 122,000 hactares of forest every year from 1990 to 2015. The greatest loss in the country is estimated at 250,000 ha of forests annually according to NFA estimates for the period 2005 to 2010.”
The depletion of this forest cover has been partly blamed for drastic changes to weather conditions, which affect areas such as agricultural productivity. According to ERA’s target, under phase III of the project, the authority “will restore 15 hectares of forest cover at Wambabya Central Reserve with forest ecosystem values, including the water and tree stocks lost from the forest due to deforestation through human activity.”
While officiating the launch of the tree planting, the chairperson of ERA, Dr. Sarah Wasagali Kanaabi, applauded the National Forestry Authority for accepting to partner with the authority to implement the project, and noted that “the trees planted are expected to support the forest ecosystem and the water cycle in the wetlands that feed into River Wambabya thus ensuring access to clean water for communities and the sustainability of the electricity sub-sector through hydropower generation.”
According to a statement, she added that the Electricity Regulatory Authority is deliberate about conserving the environment and getting people off cutting trees for charcoal, noting that as a result, this year, a cooking tariff of Shs 451 and Shs 412, which incentivizes the use of electricity for cooking by institutions and domestic consumers was officially launched.
The authority says that cooking with charcoal is more expensive than using electricity. Charity Chebet, the representative of the board chairperson of the National Forestry Authority (NFA), noted that the partnership was timely and thanked ERA for supporting the NFA to preserve natural forests.
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