Overview
Uganda has to expand its wood resources substantially to meet the growing demand of wood products and to reduce the strong pressure on the remaining natural forests. According to FAO, Uganda has one of the highest deforestation rates in the World with 2.7% per year. Only a few thousand hectares of timber plantations remain but at least 65,000 ha of high yielding plantations are necessary to meet the domestic demand. Due to investment barriers tree planting for timber production is only viable if public incentives are provided. The EU-funded Sawlog Production Grant Scheme (SPGS), which supported the establishment of 2,500 ha in the last 2 years, has demonstrated this.
The Uganda: Nile Basin Reforestation Project is a project cluster of 5 similar projects aiming to provide a new financing mechanism to overcome the current barriers to establish timber plantations in Uganda and to allow communities to benefit from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In total the project activities cover an area of 468 ha within Rwoho Central Forest Reserve (NFA planting area: 402.4 ha (86 %), community planting area: 65.6 ha (14 %). The Reserve covers in total an area of 9,100 ha. Based on conservative estimates, with a 22 years rotation cycle for all tree species, the project was expected to produce 17,885 tCO2-e by 2017.
Benefits
The projects have allowed the involvement of private and community-based tree planting initiatives with different investor shares. Due diligence, monitoring, validation and verification costs has been shared among the project cluster. Based on a successful implementation of the first pilot cluster the portfolio was planned to be expanded across the country clustered in a number of deforested public forest reserves and target regions. Hence, a project design that can be easily replicated was developed and the concept will consider options for a programmatic approach.