Tree Planting In Rubuguri, Western Uganda - stage 4!

The entire project is at the request of the local farmers and on their own smallholdings. Those involved thus far are organised into 7 community groups, whose representatives sign contracts on farmers' behalf.

My only involvement has been as a fund-raiser plus my input into the contract wording. But this is 100% a Rubuguri initiative, and they are the ones pushing it, not me.

We have not planted fruit trees because farmers have not requested them; in any case bananas and pawpaw grow readily.

Not many of the local farmers have a mobile phone so photos of the plantings are a bit sparse. I have more-or-less pledged no more flying - the carbon footprint of a return trip to Uganda for me alone would mean about 6 tonnes of CO2 - which I view as a betrayal of one of the main aims of these plantings. But were any Kiwis going to Uganda to e.g. see the gorillas in Bwindi, I would welcome them visiting Rubuguri and reporting back.

Hi Nicolaas, good questions. Regarding ensuring planting, I have asked Moses to send photos of the trees planted by the seven community groups, and some of those are shown under the previous page https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/reforestation-in-sw-uganda-stage-3

Christine and I have met with Moses, Felix, John, the three nurserymen, and several of the community group leaders and we've been shown some of the plantings ourselves. I have a high regard for Moses' integrity as he was the one to initiate this entire scheme, set up community meetings, negotiate contracts and get them signed. Thus far, the land we are planting on is owned by the 195 subsistence farmers themselves and it is at their request that we have funded the trees. There is a crying need for MORE trees and more community groups want to be involved. The sky is the limit. We have a nominal target of $NZ 3000 but the need is FAR greater than that.