Sironko District Woman Member of Parliament, Hon. Asha Nabulo Mafabi, has urged the Ugandan government to accelerate bamboo planting efforts to combat land degradation and protect water catchment areas. During a plenary session in Parliament, Mafabi highlighted the need for practical programs to address environmental challenges, citing land degradation, climate change, and demand for wood products as key concerns. She emphasized that Uganda must turn its environmental commitments into tangible actions on the ground.
Mafabi referred to the Bonn Challenge, a global restoration initiative launched by the Government of Germany and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2011. The initiative aims to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. Uganda made a commitment to restore 2.5 million hectares of degraded and deforested land under this challenge in 2014. According to IUCN records, restoration assessments later identified over eight million hectares with potential for restoration.
Bamboo was identified as a crucial component of Uganda's restoration efforts due to its potential to restore degraded land, provide wood products, and protect water catchments. Mafabi stated that bamboo can restore land by adding nutrients to the soil and help meet the increasing demand for wood products, particularly given Uganda's rapidly growing and youthful population. She also stressed that promoting bamboo could contribute to the protection of water catchment areas.
However, Mafabi questioned the progress made in implementing Uganda's restoration commitments and urged the government and stakeholders to move beyond policy declarations to practical implementation. She expressed concerns about the effects of climate change, citing President Yoweri Museveni's recent remarks on environmental and tourism issues, including changes in Uganda's climate and the melting of glaciers on the Rwenzori Mountains.
Mafabi emphasized that environmental programs can fail if not sufficiently advocated for and implemented at the community level. She challenged both government and opposition legislators to focus on practical solutions to environmental challenges rather than assigning blame. As a parliamentarian, she believes it is her responsibility to act as a bridge between government programs and communities, ensuring that policies adopted at the national level are understood, supported, and implemented locally.
The National Bamboo Strategy and Action Plan envisages bamboo contributing to restoration, with the Ministry of Water and Environment estimating that bamboo could account for about 15 percent, or 375,000 hectares, of the 2.5 million-hectare forest landscape restoration target. In 2026, IUCN reported that Uganda had launched a Forest and Landscape Restoration Implementation Hub aimed at accelerating restoration efforts between 2026 and 2030.
Beyond environmental restoration, Mafabi highlighted water access challenges in Sironko District, where she represents. She appealed to the Minister of Water and Environment to extend water accessibility to communities further downstream, citing the district's numerous water streams and waterfalls, and its benefits from the Gravity Flow Water Scheme. Mafabi's presentation brought together two key priorities for Sironko: restoring Uganda's degraded landscapes and ensuring that the country's water resources are protected and made accessible to more households.
Key points
- Ugandan MP Asha Nabulo Mafabi calls for accelerated bamboo planting to combat land degradation and protect water catchment areas.
- Mafabi urges the government to translate environmental policies and commitments into practical actions at the grassroots level.
- The initiative aims to restore 2.5 million hectares of degraded and deforested land in Uganda by promoting bamboo planting and sustainable land use practices.
