Africa-Press – Uganda. The National Forestry Authority (NFA) has condemned attempts by a yet to be identified developer to illegally demarcate and take over part of Kitubulu central forest reserve in Entebbe Municipality, Wakiso District.
“This forest measuring 80 hectares was gazetted in 1932 to protect Lake Victoria and the environment, there are unscrupulous people who want to steal this land but we have stopped them and are going to open up a file against them at the police and begin investigations into who they are,” the authority’s director Natural Forest Resource Management, Mr Tom Rukundo, said Friday.
Mr Rukundo made the remarks after NFA officials together with Entebbe Municipality Member of Parliament, Mr Michael Kakembo, on Friday morning led an enforcement team to raze down concrete fence poles reportedly put up the previous night by an unidentified developer around Kitubulu Forest Reserve.
Mr Rukundo said the authority would discuss with security authorities in order to deploy personnel in the forest reserve to counter the encroachers.
“The forest is in a strategic place which has licensed eco-tourism operators but these are unscrupulous people who want to steal it and put up different projects, there are those who want to divide it into plots for sale,” he said.
Mr Rukundo said the matter was brought to their attention after a video circulated online showing the concrete demarcations around part of the forest. He noted that they are faced with a challenge of enough manpower scarcity to keep surveillance of the forest reserves across the country.
“As I talk we have less than 60 environment police officers and about 100 UPDF officers all over the country which is not enough to police everywhere that is why sometimes it takes long to act because we have to first organize ourselves,” he said.
Mr Kakembo (Entebbe Municipality MP) challenged whoever claims to have a land title of the forest to approach the area leaders and prove ownership of the land.
“This forest was planted and is owned by the people of Entebbe, it has been a week since unknown persons encroached on Kitubulu Forest, we woke up in the morning to concrete poles demarcating the forest. I approached most of the leaders and NFA officials and they denied knowledge of any developer on the forest,” he said.
“Why would a rightful owner of the land come in the middle of the night and demarcate the forest into plots, with trees that are visibly fully mature,” he added.
Entebbe Municipality Town Clerk, Mr Charles Magumba, said the municipal was not aware of any development taking place at the forest reserve.
“This activity was done at night, we have not approved any development here, this is a gazetted area, it has never been degazatted by Parliament as required and we don’t have any approved plans in this place,” he said.
Ms Assumpta Nakamya a conservationist who raised the alarm on social media of the demarcation said it was wrong for any developer to destroy a forest, which was planted by residents of Entebbe to protect the environment.
“When I recorded and posted the video of the demarcation on different social media platforms, I received threats that the developer was someone high up in government but I am glad that NFA and municipal leaders have come out and brought to a halt these illegal demarcations on our forest,” she said.
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