What is Sustainable forestry?
Forget the textbook definitions, I am here to tell you what I know from experience, sustainable forestry is not about planting trees and keeping them there till they complete their life cycle, it is rather about planting them, harvesting their wood and replanting their seedlings, simple as that. There should be a nexus where standing forests can support the society around them, both in tangible and intangible ways. Planting trees and harvesting them for economic benefits does not differ from a farmer who keeps chickens to sell them at maturity and replenishes with a new stock of fowl.
But why should this model even matter in the first place? Here is why.
The current population in Uganda is around 45 million people, according to UBOS this figure is expected to increase to 75 million people by the year 2045. besides that, already there is a housing deficit of 2.4 million people in the country as per the current stats, if we keep building the way we do with cement and steel, we are likely to keep accelerating the global temperatures beyond 1.5 degrees because already we are at the tipping point where conventional construction has been widely spoken as the leading contributor to global emissions i.e occupying 40%.
If we are to break this cycle, we have to build back better, we have to take adbvantae of the existing renewable resources to give our planet enough time to heal, you can’t expect the next coming rise in our population toi stay homeless or completely eradicate their choices on what type of materials to you, the most important chance we have is looking at the way we build. Surprisingly, the weather and soils in Uganda are giving us the most favourable grounds, you can plant trees like Pine and Eucalyptus, and harvest them for a short time without running out of wood. The two great rainy seasons we receive are a testament that we can plant fast-growing tree species and harvest their wood to build stronger homes.
You may wonder, why wood of all the materials, yes, the reason is just simple, wood eats the dangerous Carbon dioxide to provide life-saving gas we breathe as oxygen, in return this carbon is sequestered, and used in photosynthesis to form wood that will be harvested, and stored as construction stored carbon. Imagine if each house you build, there is a football field of trees replanted and tonnes of carbon stored, this will be a great guarantee for our future generations to come.
I call upon you to look at this direction as it is the only proven chance for the survival of man kind, we are noit sure if the other planets will inhabit us atleast in the next coming 10,000 years, that means our only home is Earth, if we become lazy and let the climate change change our fate, not only will our history be erased but it will mark the the end of our civilisation in the dark cosmos.