Tree planting can boost former IDPs’ income

ENVIRONMENT state minister Jessica Eriyo was quoted as saying displaced persons (IDPs) who have returned to their villages in northern Uganda have destroyed over 72% of forest reserves in the area.

She cautioned that the IDPs need to be sensitised on sustainable resource use because deforestation and the destruction of wetlands in Teso and Karamoja sub-regions would lead to grave climate change and desertification.

Sensitisation of IDPs alone is not enough. The National Forest Authority (NFA) attempted to sensitise the locals on preserving the reserves in vain. Now that peace has returned to the North, the locals must cultivate, at least for subsistence.

Growing crops or constructing a house in a place that had been abandoned requires one to clear land. Therefore, the Government should provide IDPs with crops seeds, as well as seedlings of trees such as pine for re-a forestation.

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The painting is by Laura Tasheiko

Egypt Turns Desert Into Farmland

Abu Minqar in Egypt is one of the extreme examples of the country's plan to ''green'' its deserts and transform the barren areas that consume most of the landscape into productive farms and fields.

Though the policy has been going for decades, it is now achieving large-scale success.

Close to the Libyan border, Abu Minqar is far more remote than majority of desert farmland in Egypt. Its existence is proof that Egypt can set up farms anywhere.

"There is no desert left at all," said Mohsen Nawara, manager of South Tahrir Station, a research farm founded by the Desert Development Center (DDC) of the American University in Cairo. "It's all green now."

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