Paul Jacovelli explaining to Jan Vandenabeele of Miti magazine, the ecological background of the SPGS plantation clusters. (Photos: Better Globe Forestry)
twice a year, linked to the disbursements that are scheduled over a period of two to three years. With these results, SPGS managed to convince the European Union and Norway to fund a second phase, to run from 2009 to 2013. The planting target this time is 30,000 hectares, out of which about 24,000 hectares is already signed up. Training at various levels continues to be an important component – from glyphosate spraying to an annual tour of southern African plantations. Links are being set up with learning institutions like Makerere University, where a new course on commercial forestry will be offered. Some lecturers have signed up with SPGS and have become commercial tree growers. Cooperation with the Forest College in Nyabeya however is minimal, as the college’s approach to forestry is quite different. Sustainability The SPGS team has done a great deal of thinking on how the momentum it has built up with private growers can be sustained once this project ends. The most significant development seems to be the creation of the Uganda Timber Growers Association (UTGA), which bundles together the private growers that (mostly) have benefited from the grant scheme. (see article on UTGA in the next Issue of Miti). Profitability is a key issue here, and this in turn is heavily influenced by transport
Miti July-September 2010
costs. Hence, SPGS has taken to clustering its beneficiaries to create a critical mass for marketing. However, the idea came late, but tries to rectify the existing scattering towards more concentration in limited areas. Three of the clusters can count on the future establishment of a sawmill, due to the presence of large growers. One is The New Forests Company, around Namwasa Central Forest Reserve in Mubende; another is Global Forests Ltd (a German company in Hoima) and the third is Green Resources Ltd (Norwegian) in Mayuge. That still leaves other clusters in the cold. One possibility to cut down on transport costs is to convert saw logs in the plantation with mobile mills, though these are more wasteful than using fixed band saws. Chainsaw conversion is not encouraged as it is extremely wasteful. Another key element for sustainability is the training provided by SPGS on plantation establishment and management, to create “contractors” whose services can be hired for this kind of work. This had led to the creation of the Ugandan National Association of Forestry Services Providers. Dynamic evolution SPGS has its own dynamics, influenced and pushed through its close contacts with private growers. Interestingly, these are mainly not farmers but business people who simply see an opportunity for making money. Now that
SPGS’s first plantations (planted in 2004) have started producing poles and small-size trees through thinnings, the scheme has started offering a grant for pruning and thinning, both at US$ 50/ha. More emphasis has been put on research through cooperation with other entities like the Uganda Gatsby Trust that works with cloned eucalypts (hybrids between E. grandis, E. camaldulensis and E. urophylla). It can be said that SPGS reintroduced good concepts of plantation forestry into Uganda, and linked it up with commercial tree growing as it exists in southern Africa, at a time when the legal and economic environment was favourable. Three years from now, 40,000 hectares will have been established through SPGS’s grant system, while other growers will push this figure even higher. The creation of UTGA is definitely a coup, while the training and capacity building of many workers used as “contractors” will also have a positive and lasting influence. SPGS’s consultancy reports and its publication, Tree planting guidelines for Uganda, are quality products. A creative force in Ugandan forestry, SPGS has still three years left to consolidate its achievements and we wish the organisation well. The writer is the Executive Director, Better Globe Forestry Ltd
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