“A funny place to store carbon”: UWA-FACE Foundation’s tree planting project in Mount Elgon national park, Uganda

A report by Chris Lang and Timothy Byakola. Published by World Rainforest Movement, December 2006.

Contents

1. Ticking the right boxes or offsetting responsibility?

Box: FACE: The facts
Box: The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)

2. Mount Elgon

The peoples living in and around Mount Elgon
The Bagisu
The Sabiny

3. A chronology of conflicts at Mount Elgon

Box: The British in Uganda
Box: International support for evictions
Mount Elgon is declared a national park
Evictions from the Kapkwata Softwood Plantation
Land rights, shootings, killings
A new boundary and more evictions
Parliamentary committee on natural resources
More conflict
Boundary disputes, another survey and the Benet sue UWA
Illegal logging and yet more conflicts

4. The UWA-FACE project

Is the FACE project additional?
UWA’s version of events at Mount Elgon
The UWA-FACE project and the boundary of the national park
Benefits to local people from carbon sales?
Notes from a visit to Mount Elgon

5. IUCN and NORAD

IUCN and the Katoomba Group
Box: Carbon forestry in Uganda

6. Forest Stewardship Council Certification

Does the project comply with FSC standards?
SGS’s visits to Mount Elgon
Certifying the trees or certifying the park management?

7. “We just want out land back”