WHERE IS IT? State House deputy press secretary Linda Nabusayi (L) after failing to find the degraded part of the forest. PHOTO BY ISAAC KASAMANI

It is the classic case of failing to see the forest for the trees. A government-organised trip to show journalists supposedly degraded parts of Mabira Forest Reserve backfired after the guides failed to find evidence of degradation in the lush tropical forest.
Organised by State House and led by Environment minister Flavia Nabugere, the trip was meant to show journalists degraded parts of the forest that President Museveni wants turned over to the nearby Lugazi Sugar Works to expand their sugarcane fields.
However, two hours after the effort began, the search party had seen plenty of trees, shrub and vegetation – but no empty spaces. By that time Ms Nabugere, the Environment minister, had long abandoned the party and settled into a hotel in nearby Mukono town for a cup of coffee.
With the minister out of the way, some of the government officials on the search party found space to speak candidly to the journalists.
“We were surprised when we read that the President is planning to give away a degraded area because we don’t have any,” an official from the National Forestry Authority, the government agency that manages forests, said, on condition of anonymity.
“That place that was earlier talked about has since been reclaimed and trees are growing there. But a forest doesn’t grow like a baby; it takes several years to grow.”
After one-and-half hours in the lush-green forest – which sits between Lake Victoria and River Nile, and is an important part of the ecosystem, the NFA officials called off the search.
“We cannot see any degraded area,” one of them said. Let’s just go back.”
Back at Colline Hotel, Mukono, with a steaming cup of coffee by her side, Ms Nabugere insisted she had seen the missing trees and defended the proposed give-away of part of Mabira.
“The parts that I passed I could see some free and bare places at a distance,” she said. “If a nation is to develop, it must exploit the environment. Government can degazette and amend a forest so long as it fulfills certain conditions.”
Critics of the proposed give-away will argue that convincing the public about the degradation of the forest is a basic condition to begin with.