Planting trees against the climate crisis

Restoring a haven for people and animals in the Kaazi Forest

"Take action and plant a tree." This was the motto for a planting event on 7 May 2022. 150 volunteers answered the call of the Uganda Scouts Association, including many scouts, students, climate activists and staff of other tree planting organisations. Together they planted 1,236 trees in the Kaazi Forest within 2 hours. Parts of the Kaazi forest were donated to the scout organisation many years ago. In the forest area, large areas had already been cleared before the donation. The scouts no longer wanted to put up with this state of affairs in the forest. With tree planting campaigns, they set an example against climate change and for the protection and restoration of natural areas. Saad Ssebuliba, one of the scouts, says he plants trees "to restore damaged forests and to fight the negative effects of deforestation on the planet".

Background

In 2000, 32% of Uganda’s land area was covered by forest, in 2015 it was only 8.6% (IUCN, 2016). Forests are being cleared to obtain high-quality timber and to create more agricultural, industrial and settlement areas. For the local population, this means increasing drought, native animals lack adequate places to retreat and forests lose their function as the “lungs” of the planet.
Reforesting land is one approach to counteracting these challenges. In the Kaazi area with a size of 49.7 hectares, a pilot project shows how this could be done. The aim is to create an appropriate retreat for humans and animals here. For the population, the forest can then serve as a recreational area, among other things. Currently, only a part of this area (29%) consists of intact forest. There are currently no trees on the majority of the land. This makes up 40% of the Kaazi area. The remaining 31% is heavily degraded forest.
Together with the Uganda Scouts Association, which owns the Kaazi area, Fairventures Worldwide established a tree nursery with a capacity of 30,000 seedlings in 2020. In the first planting season in 2021, 6,000 seedlings of indigenous tree species were planted. This corresponds to 3.1 hectares. Initial results show that the survival rate of the seedlings is over 90%.
The long-term goal is to reforest the entire area and create a nature reserve in the Kaazi Forest in the process.

The good deed

Each good deed is used to plant a seedling of a native tree species such as musizi, mahogany, umbrella tree, large-leaved saucer berry and silk oak in the Kaazi area together with the Uganda Scouts Association. The seedlings are grown beforehand in the project's own tree nursery. Here, regular workshops are also held with the scouts. The tree nursery and the cooperation with the Uganda Scouts Association help to impart knowledge about the positive impact of forest areas and teach concrete practices for tree care. In this way, people will be able to work even better for the preservation of the forest in the future and contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change in the region in the long term. Air and soil quality will improve and more CO2 will be captured. In this way, the Kaazi Forest will once again become a retreat for people and animals in the region.