Communities Restoring Parks

Latest Conservation project

In the last 2 decades, an area of tropical forest larger than Madagascar was lost. Such forests are some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet and store 55% of all forest carbon stocks. This led the UN to coin this decade the “Decade of Restoration”. While government can call for forests to be restored, forests are being used by local communities for fuelwood. In fact, wood supplies 80% of domestic energy needs in Africa. What is needed are win-win situations, where both nature and people benefit, and this is our aim.

We propose a sustainable win-win endeavor in Kibale National Park, Uganda to promote reforestation/tree planning in a manner that will nurture the recovery of biodiversity, remove invasive plants, benefit local communities with jobs, and provide people cooking fuels.  Before Kibale became a park, more than 200 km2 of forest were degraded. Unfortunately, reforestation is stalled because invasive Lantana camara and the woody herb Acanthus pubescens inhibit tree regeneration.  We will build on our decades of restoration experience by employing local community members to remove these problem plants, turn this biomass into clean-burning briquettes, and plant native seedlings.

This is a very collaborative partnership done in close partnership with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, thus much of the decision making is placed in Ugandan hands.  Uganda Conservation Foundation is on board to help provide advice building our business model and make it possible for our efforts to last well into the future. New Nature Foundation is providing critically needed expertise on briquette production.  Makerere, Carleton, and Vancouver Island universities enhance our research abilities and allow us to build capacity in Uganda through training.