Locals at the edge of Kibale National Park, home
to Africa’s densest population of primates.
Carbon Dioxide Emission (FACE) Foundation,
a Dutch nonprofit that pays the Ugandan
government to plant trees that will one day
offset carbon emissions. Two more Dutch
organzations are involved in offset-related
tree-planting in Uganda: Tendris launched
the GreenCard program, which calculates
and offsets the carbon emissions created by
consumer purchases; and GreenSeat plants
and manages forests in Uganda to compensate
for the carbon released during air travel.
With some 2.4 billion tons of carbon traded
last year, carbon offsetting is a booming
business. Carbon-neutral products allow
consumers to help pay for projects that offset
the emissions linked to their purchases. The
money goes to efforts like tree planting or
wind power investment. These programs are
attractive because they allow consumers to
reduce their carbon footprint without changing
their lifestyles. Some environmentalists say
offset programs such as GreenCard and
GreenSeat are symbiotic, a way for consumers
and companies to atone for their eco sins and
boost the economies of poorer nations that
most acutely feel the effects of climate change.
a debate rages over the benefits of tree-planting schemes.
But critics say offsetting is a guilt-assuaging
quick fix for decadence and over-consumption.
They say it comes at the expense of people in developing nations, for the UWA. “But they had been encroached. Local people cleared
who are once again being punished by Western business schemes. the land and planted their crops. They have now been removed,
Turinawe now lives in a small mud hut with his wife and eight and we are trying to have the forest come back.” He denies that the
children in a farming village just outside the park boundary. Like eviction of the encroachers had to do with the million-dollar treemost of the families in this village, Turinawe’s children do not go planting contract the UWA won in the mid-1990s from FACE. The
to school. They spend their days helping to grow bananas and foundation, for its part, refutes claims of mistreatment and maintains
potatoes, running for buckets of water, and carrying sacks of that its work in Uganda complies with principles of responsible
cornmeal. At night, their bed is a plastic tarp on the floor of their forest management as well as local and international laws.
mud hut. Turinawe says that after being kicked out of the park,
ecause of stories like that of the Turinawe family—episodes
his quality of life fell dramatically. “There is not enough land to
involving eviction, brutality, and exclusion stretch back well
farm here,” he says, because the villages are so overcrowded with
over a decade now and include hundreds of complaints and
evictees. “I don’t have enough food to feed my family.”
Down a dirt lane from Turinawe lives the local elder, several lawsuits—today, in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, a debate
Mujafragense, who has resided in the village his whole life. He rages over the benefits of tree-planting schemes. Does the global
recalls the evictions of the early 1990s. “I saw the fire on the eco business of carbon offsets actually sow rewards for the people
hillside and watched the people run from their homes,” he says. here? Mwandha says if you looked at the villages around the park
“Mothers were screaming and crying. You could see fear on their before and after the tree-planting project, a “big leap for the better” is
faces.” Mujafragense agrees that the evictions have also caused apparent in the standard of living. He says local mothers and fathers
are now gainfully employed as tree planters. And there’s more. “We
overcrowding and food shortages.
But the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) insists the displaced are improving our climate, wildlife like elephants have returned to the
villagers were trespassers. According to the UWA, the villagers park, and we are getting funds to replant areas that were encroached
moved into the area during Idi Amin’s reign and were living on the that would have remai ned grassland for a very long time.”
But Timothy Byakola, an activist with Kampala’s Climate and
land illegally, destroying its delicate ecosystem. The national parks
have been established “for wildlife conservation, the conservation of Development Initiatives, says otherwise. He has fought treenatural resources,” says Sam Mwandha, director of field operations planting schemes nationwide since their introduction in 1994.
In Uganda’s capital, Kampala,
Wrappers from a local gin-like banana liquor are reused for seedlings that villagers typically plant during the rainy season (opposite).
86 | february-march 2008
photos by Annie Marie Musselman
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