Hon. Nabulo Calls for Accelerated Bamboo Planting to Combat Land Degradation and Protect Water Catchments

Sironko District Woman Member of Parliament Hon. Asha Nabulo Mafabi has called for renewed government action to promote bamboo planting and restore degraded landscapes, saying Uganda must turn its environmental commitments into practical programmes on the ground.

Hon. Nabulo made the call during plenary in Parliament, where she drew the attention of legislators to what she described as both a national and international challenge involving land degradation, climate change, demand for wood products and protection of water catchment areas.

She referred to the Bonn Challenge, a global restoration initiative launched by the Government of Germany and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2011. The initiative seeks to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030.

Mafabi reminded Parliament that Uganda subsequently made a commitment to restore 2.5 million hectares of degraded and deforested land. IUCN records show that Uganda made the 2.5-million-hectare pledge in 2014 under the Bonn Challenge, while restoration assessments later identified more than eight million hectares with potential for restoration.

According to Mafabi, bamboo was identified as an important component of Uganda's restoration efforts because of its potential contribution to degraded-land restoration, provision of wood products and protection of water catchments.

“We pledged to plant 2.5 million hectares of bamboo to restore the degraded land because bamboo has a way of restoring land by putting nutrition in the soil,” Mafabi told Parliament.

She further argued that promoting bamboo could help Uganda prepare for increasing demand for wood and wood products, particularly given the country's rapidly growing and youthful population.

“Secondly, to help manage the future demand of wood products and wood,” she said, adding that the intervention could also contribute to the protection of water catchment areas.

However, Mafabi questioned the extent to which Uganda has progressed in implementing its restoration commitments and urged government and other stakeholders to move beyond policy declarations to practical implementation.

Her concerns come against the backdrop of Uganda's continuing efforts to expand forest and landscape restoration. The country's National Bamboo Strategy and Action Plan envisages bamboo contributing to restoration, with the Ministry of Water and Environment estimating that bamboo could account for about 15 percent, or 375,000 hectares, of the 2.5 million-hectare forest landscape restoration target.

She also pointed to the effects of climate change, citing remarks made by President Yoweri Museveni during recent discussions on environmental and tourism issues concerning changes in Uganda's climate and the melting of glaciers on the Rwenzori Mountains.

Mafabi said environmental programmes can fail when they are not sufficiently advocated for and implemented at community level.

“Members, these programs tend to fail because we are not advocating for them on the ground,” she said.

Calls for solutions rather than blame

The Sironko legislator also challenged both government and opposition legislators to focus more on practical solutions to environmental challenges rather than concentrating on assigning blame.

She said Parliamentarians have a responsibility to act as a bridge between government programmes and communities by ensuring that policies adopted at national level are understood, supported and implemented locally.

“Instead of pointing out the problems, let's focus on the solutions and advocate for the solutions to be implemented,” Mafabi said.

Her remarks came as Uganda continues to seek ways of translating its restoration commitments into measurable action. In 2026, IUCN reported that Uganda had launched a Forest and Landscape Restoration Implementation Hub aimed at accelerating restoration efforts between 2026 and 2030.

Mafabi seeks expanded water access in Sironko

Beyond environmental restoration, Mafabi used her presentation to highlight water access challenges in Sironko District.

She told the Minister of Water and Environment that Sironko is endowed with numerous water streams and waterfalls and is among the areas benefiting from the Gravity Flow Water Scheme.

She thanked the Government of Uganda and the Ministry of Water and Environment for the intervention but said more needed to be done to ensure that communities further downstream also benefit from improved access to safe water.

“Sironko is one of the districts which are blessed with so many water streams and waterfalls, and in fact we are one of the beneficiaries of the Gravity Flow Water Scheme,” she said.

“However, I would like to request that we extend this water accessibility further down.”

Her appeal places water access alongside environmental conservation as key priorities for Sironko, where protection of water catchment areas, restoration of degraded land and expansion of safe water infrastructure are closely connected.

Mafabi's presentation therefore brought together two issues with a direct impact on communities in Sironko and beyond: restoring Uganda's degraded landscapes while ensuring that the country's water resources are protected and made accessible to more households.

As Uganda works towards its restoration commitments, Mafabi's intervention puts emphasis on implementation at grassroots level, urging Parliament, government ministries and local communities to translate environmental policies and commitments into practical action.

By John Kusolo