By Our Reporter
Last week, Uganda Breweries staff partnered with Tree Adoption Uganda, and joined by the community, planted 5,000 indigenous tree seedlings on 10 acres of land with smallholder farmers that are interested in Agroforestry in Nakaseke district. This is in addition to the 1,000-plus trees that have already been planted in Luweero by the brewery staff in the past, under the ROOTs campaign.
Tree planting is one of the interventions that is currently being implemented in Nakaseke district to avert the negative climate effects brought about by human activities.
Speaking at the tree planting activity, the Uganda Breweries Sustainability and Communications Manager, Suleiman Ngondi said that they are committed to make progress on environmental sustainability both in their business operations and in society.
“We are big on tree planting because we know the success of our business is inextricably linked with the health of the planet, and this is well detailed in our Society 2030: Spirit of progress sustainability action plan,” Suleiman added.
The Running out of Trees Campaign seeks to respond to Uganda’s International obligations per the Bonn challenge whose aim is to restore 2.5million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030 through forest protection, afforestation, and sustainable biomass production measures under Uganda’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
“Through landscape restoration activities like planting trees and agroforestry, we are building resilience for smallholder farmers against the changing climate while economically empowering unemployed young people in Uganda’s rural communities by teaching them how to set up and manage indigenous tree nurseries and tree farms,” said Charles Batte, Chief Executive Officer Tree Adoption Uganda.
All tree seedlings planted under the ROOTs campaign are going to be mapped by Tree Adoption Uganda, who have developed a tree mapping App that enables them to collect data on the tree seedlings planted for easy monitoring and maintenance.
The ROOTs campaign was launched as a 5-year plan to bring on board different players in the private sector to support the Government’s initiative to replenish Uganda’s forest cover. The main target of this campaign is to plant 40 million trees across the country by 2025, this means that every Ugandan should plant at least one tree.
