A tree seedling for reforestation in Uganda

Winston Churchill once called Uganda "the pearl of Africa". At that time, Uganda was a green, fertile, biodiverse country between the gigantic Lake Victoria, the White Nile and the misty Ruwenzori Mountains, home to the endangered mountain gorillas. The central region of Uganda used to stretch from the northern shores of Lake Victoria in gentle, forested hills. Today the hills are built up or largely bare. Studies show that between 1990 and 2010 Uganda lost around 88,150 hectares of forest every year. In total, this is 31.7% of the forest cover (FAO, 2010). And deforestation continues. Uganda was located in an East African tropical microclimate thanks to Lake Victoria and the jungle. This microclimate is being lost. This has fatal consequences for the entire region. In Uganda, around 82% of the people live directly or indirectly from agriculture (Welthungerhilfe, 2015). 85% of them are smallholders with land holdings of less than five acres. Their agriculture is based primarily on rainfall, with hardly any irrigation systems. Over 90% of their energy supply is based on wood, mainly for cooking. Due to climate change, rainy seasons and patterns are changing. The rainy season, which used to occur twice a year, has become unreliable: either it doesn't rain at all - with the result that smallholders and peasants have no harvests and lose their seeds - or it floods, which removes humus and the harvest is lost if the small fields are not sufficiently contoured, ditched and protected by rows of trees and hedges. This means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for smallholders to make a living from their crops.