Happy World Forest Day 2017
“Forests and Energy”
“Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not be able to live without them.” – Isaac Asimov
Chimpanzee Trust joins the global community for today’s celebration of forests, using this platform to raise awareness concerning the importance of all types of forests and trees outside-forests for the benefit of current and future generations, and revel the ways in which they sustain and protect humans and wildlife. As we highlight the importance of wood-energy in improving people’s lives, powering sustainable development and mitigating climate change, we remind the world’s populace about the necessity to conserve forests.
Since its inception, the Chimpanzee Trust has fronted the conservation of chimpanzee habitats in Uganda, the tropical forests as vital for the conservation of the eastern Chimpanzee species that lives in the Albertine Rift landscape of Uganda, in addition to ensuring sustainable community development. The Trust has been working with communities who are at the front line in the conservation of chimpanzees, ensuring that tropical forests that are under immense pressure from unsustainable agriculture, unsustainable energy harvesting, timber felling, and human settlement are sustainably used.
The Trust operations are contributing to the conservation of forests on private and public land in Uganda through implementation of several innovative conservation strategies including building capacity and supporting communities to establish energy saving stoves to replace the 3-stone cooking fire places.
In addition, the Trust is operationalizing conservation financing specifically the Payment for Ecosystem Services scheme that have been operationalised under the GEF/UNEP/Government of Uganda “Developing an Experimental Methodology for Testing the Effectiveness of Payment for Ecosystem Services to Enhance Conservation in Productive Landscapes in Uganda” project 2010-2014 and currently “Developing a Payment for Ecosystem Services Scheme to Conserve Bugoma Forest Ecosystem, Uganda” project 2016-2017 funded by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.
Chimpanzee Trust recognizes that forests are the lungs of the land, supporting humans and wildlife for sustenance of all life forms and unless conserved sustainably, globally will lead to self-destruction of humans and the wildlife that depend on this habitat.
Nest counting in Itoya forest Hoima district
Chimpanzee Trust notes that conservation and enhancement of chimpanzee habitats, the tropical forests goes hand in hand with the conservation of the endangered species, for it’s survival through the ages to come.
