Climate Action and Clean Energy; SDG goal #13 and #7 Tree planting, training and mentorship to sustain afforestation through incarcerated populations and institutions

The most recent reports indicate that schools and prisons are one of the biggest consumers of wood fuel yet they contribute minimally to the replacement and restoration of forests in there locality. While addressing a press conference on 29th August 2017, the commissioner general of prisons confessed that a study has showed that prisons only consumes up to 9000 trees every day in wood fuel and yet they have not done a lot to restore them. It’s against this background that the Great lakes peace center is championing the campaign through the schools and prisons as an opportunity to plant what is already lost.

According to Director of Environment, Mr. Paul Mafabi, Uganda has lost 900,000 hectares of forest cover over the last ten years yet the government has planted less than 100,000 hectares, creating a deficit. In the same report he said that the demand for wood fuel is increasing at a sporadic rate thus a need of countering it with planting more trees and creating alternative sources plus energy saving facilities to be adopted. At that rate it means Uganda is losing 90,000 hectares of forest cover every 12 months. This needs to be addressed to combat desertification, promote terrestrial ecosystems and halt biodiversity loss in light with goal number 15 and goal number 13 of the sustainable development goals.

Project Summary:

Great lakes Peace Center supports the SDGs for climate action (goal Number 13) and renewable energy (Goal number 7). We work with schools and prison farms since research shows that they are the biggest consumers of fuel wood in Uganda. We ask them to pattern with us in planting as many trees as possible because in future they shall be the same people to use them for their own consumption.

Program Goal:

To contribute to the realization and achieving of the sustainable development goals #13 and #7 in Kasese, Uganda by involving the institutions and Incarcerated populations to take urgent action on combating climate change by protecting, promoting, and restore sustainable use of forests to halt biodiversity loss.

Program Objectives

• To train and mentor 200 forestry and biodiversity champions that will facilitate the sustainability of the trees planted in different institutions plus training their peers on how best to do the practice.
• To plant different tree species in different areas identified in the incarcerated populations and institutions by developing a sustainable nursery bed that will supply tree seedlings to all demand areas including subsidizing community to support tree planting around the district of Kasese with a target of 1 million trees by 2019.
• To support partner institutions and prisons with alternative, cheaper and more efficient systems for cooking (energy saving cookers in kitchens) to save and reduce on the fuel wood used to feed such big populations. This shall include trainings to ensure there is sustainability of the technology adopted.
• Improving and Strengthen institutional capacity to implement more programs in line with Forestry and Biodiversity plus other similar roles to contribute to the global vision 2030 (SDGs), Africa Vision 2063 and Uganda Vision 2040 on environment and climate change.

Schools have accepted to pattern with us in two activities:

Tree planting; In this schools have provided land and labor. Through this, trees have been planted to a tune of 5000 seedlings so far in the schools. Schools have accepted to construct energy saving stoves (Kasese secondary school and other schools are plan to construct the stoves.)

Prisons firms have accepted to partner with us in 3 activities

Tree planting; Prison firms have so far planted up to 9000 trees and are promising to plant more in the next seasons. They are also working on improving their energy saving stoves to ensure that they use less fuel in terms of wood as we are also supporting the inmates by training them in nursery bed making which we can use as the basis of having very many seedlings for planting because at the moment we get the seeds from partners who pay for the tree seedlings

We are planning to launch a tourists’ project in Kasese where we shall work with Queen Elizabeth Nation Park to provide us with Land to plant trees. In this project, each tourist is expected to plant a tree.
Kasese is the biggest tourist centers in Uganda thus it will be a very big opportunity for the tourist to participate in the tree planting something they will like contributing to once they are mobilized by the Uganda Wild life Authority. In this partnership, game rangers and wardens shall ensure that these trees shall grow.

Geographic Coverage:

The project will be implemented in Kasese district covering 20 secondary schools and four prison farms of Ibuga, Mubuku, Rukoki, Nyabirongo, and Katojo.

Management capability statement

Great Lakes Peace Center has a youthful, experienced and visionary leadership emanating from the capacity and exposure in managing CBO work at local levels and previous trainings in forestry and nature conservation. Great Lake Peace Center has a well-experienced board comprising of sub committees, namely; Planning and governance plus Finance and administration which give guidance to the implementation of the organization mandate. Great Lakes Peace Center has policies in place that guide implementation of all her programs. The organization’s operations are headed by an Executive Director supported by technical part time staff and volunteers in programs and finance management.