ENTEBBE: The Mayor of Entebbe, His Worship Frabrice Rulinda has petitioned the National Forestry Authroty (NFA) over unknown people who are attempting to grab Kitubulu Central Forest Reserve.
In a strongly-worded petition dated July 27, 2022, Rulinda asked NFA to explain how unknown people have been granted access to the forest.
On the morning morning of January 27, Entebbe resisdents were shocked to discover that some unknown people took the advantage of the National Liberation day night celebrations to erect concrete poles on the southern part of the forest in an attempted to fence it off for commercial use.
“Entebbe Municpality has neither been informed of any degazzetement of the forest, intedned give away, nor fencing of the fprest contrary to the established proceedureestabloshed by law,” he wrote, before asking the forest body to intervene and stop all illegal fencing activities.
The next day, the NFAimmeditaely demolished a fence erected by the purported grabber of the forest which neighbouring the State House Entebbe and the military barracks at Katabi.
Days ago, social media was littered with a video of what appeared to be a land-grabbing act.
Unnamed volunteers are said to have planted a forest in Entebbe which covers 80 hectares (one-third of a square mile) and was gazetted in 1982 as Kitubuu Forest Reserve.
Residents of Kitubulu and Katabi say the grabbers have been erecting a fence to cut off a chunk of the public forest over two nights, starting on NRM victory day January 26th. They continued on Thursday night of 27th and in the morning, one Maria Assumpta Nakamya shot a video of the many concrete poles used to erect the fence and posted it with a passionate appeal to the authorities to stop the blatant abuse.
Nakamya pleaded with Environment minister Beatrice Anywar to save Kitubulu Forest, reminding her that unlike Mabira which she fought hard to save that was ‘created’ or grew naturally, Kitubulu was planted by volunteers who started planting trees there in 1932.
The residents recall how in the early 1980’s they used to participate in voluntary replanting of trees in the forest.
But following the abusive act this week, the NFA with the backing of the environment protection police, the NFA crew proceeded to uproot all the posts that had been used to fence off at least two acres.
However, Entebbe local leaders and (Town Council) administrators remain concerned over the reserve.
According to NFA, the founder of the defunct Entebbe College School Joshua Senkungu who died years back was given a permit to carry out strictly forest activities in 1998 for 28 years, but that permit did not allow the erection of any structure. Permits are usually given to replant trees, NFA says.
LCs accuse a man who claims to be a son of the late Ssenkungu as the one trying to grab the man-made forest, though the school which was supposed to carry out forestry activities ceased to exist.
Sources say that it is possible that an opportunist is invoking the defunct school’s permit, which would still be valid for another five years if the school was still existing.