The country is known as the “pearl of Africa”, a phrase attributed to Winston Churchill. In 1907, Churchill, then the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, was on a tour of East Africa. On visiting Uganda, its natural beauty had a great effect on him, and in his travelogue, My African Journey, he described a “land of magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life—bird, insect, reptile, and beast—for vast scale”.

And indeed, traveling to this country for the first time, especially from other areas of Africa, which are often dry and wanting following prolonged periods without rain, one is amazed by how green the country is. However, the country’s greenery is increasingly endangered. According to Global Forest Watch, Uganda experienced an alarming 23% reduction in tree cover from 2000 to 2020.

In January 2024, journalist Culton Scovia was awarded a story grant from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network to investigate the drivers of deforestation.

She traveled to Buikwe District, a short distance from the capital, Kampala, for her fieldwork. The region, which abuts Lake Victoria, was once characterized by lush rainforests and swamp forests hosting a variety of biodiversity.

“The story was inspired by a series of media-related articles on legal instruments banning logging and timber for charcoal, as well as police roadblocks to restrict such acts. On the other hand, timber in all forms was still available on the market, with some exported to other countries. The EJN grant helped me expose the gaps in law enforcement which were enabling logging,” said Scovia.

Scovia went undercover to unveil massive illegal logging and timber trafficking in Buikwe’s forests including Mpuku, Nyimu, Luleka and Nakiza. She filmed on location, as well as used OSINT tools to show the extent of the environmental degradation.

Late last year, EJN’s East Africa consultant Kiundu Waweru traveled to Uganda and met Scovia at a restaurant near the National Parliament in Kampala. The clientele there were mostly formally dressed government and business people, and some recognized Scovia, a respected award-winning investigative journalist. “Just a few meters from the main highways, we found large swathes of the indigenous trees had been mowed down. It was shocking,” she recalled of her time in

Using a drone, she captured dramatic visuals of the thick lush canopy visible from the road, entirely bare just a few meters in, leaving the forests looking like a series of shorn football pitches side by side. Men, armed with power saws, were cutting down the centuries-old trees, then transporting the timber by trucks in broad daylight.

The investigation aired as a three-part series on June 14, 15 and 16, in the popular Buganda Broadcasting Services or BBS Terefayina Television, which broadcasts in Luganda, the dominant Indigenous language spoken by the Buganda people.

“The investigation revealed a well-heeled and coordinated network of loggers, traffickers and corrupt officers who blatantly facilitated the illegal timber trade that threatens the rich biodiversity of the forests,” said Scovia.

Importantly, the journalist found that the custodian of this precious natural resource, the National Forest Authority, was complicit by issuing licenses and permits in the guise of reforestation.

“Proof of NFA’s foul play was exposed during our undercover negotiations with the [timber] dealer….Additionally, the presence of military personnel in the forests, not to guard against illegal loggers but to protect the logs until they were loaded onto the trucks was compelling.  We could not film this for safety reasons.”

Just a year earlier, the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, had issued an Executive Order to ban tree-cutting for charcoal production, and another to ban timber exports and cancel any existing licenses for that purpose.

Scovia’s footage posed the question: Why was logging continuing despite the bans? The journalist interviewed representatives of the Forest Authority, who denied complicity and claimed they gave permits to individuals only to restore the forest

Just two days after her investigation was aired, a local Member of Parliament, Michael Lulume Bayigga of Buikwe South, wrote an urgent letter of complaint addressed to the Inspector General of Government (IGG), copied to the President and the Prime Minister.

The IGG is a national body mandated to investigate alleged or suspected corrupt practices and injustices. Its tagline is Zero Tolerance to Corruption.

In his letter, Bayigga noted “the order [against logging] was never obeyed at all… the mischief (of deforestation) continued as if no order was issued.”

He charged that even though the NFA is mandated to protect national forests under the National Forest and Tree Planting Act, and to allocate permits for tree planting in degraded forest areas while preserving the integrity and biodiversity of the forests, it instead was allocating natural forests to companies and individuals who cut down entire forests and planted exotic tree species such as eucalyptus and pine in the land left bare.

In his letter, he acknowledged Scovia’s work for bringing the issue to light: “BBS Terefayina investigated and broadcasted series of investigations which unearthed the big cartel that is masterminding deforestation and grabbing the deforested land.”

Bayigga, a long-term Member of Parliament whose constituency straddles seven sub-counties, three town councils and four-sub counties, granted EJN an interview last year. He has been a fervent advocate of the environment and biodiversity in the area, battles he has taken to the floor of the Parliament including mobilizing the Buganda Caucus, a network of 84 Members of Parliament.

“When the story aired,” he recalled, “we mobilized the communities to watch it. The perpetrators were looking for places to hide.”

“Scovia’s [story] provided evidence to the concerned people and decision makers. It also raised questions of ineptitude, corruption and negligence on the part of the environmental keepers,” he said, adding that environmental reporting is key to shaping debate, activism and policy.

His office monitored the situation on the ground through local town councils, which are a type of local government within municipalities in Uganda. Local councils who head villages are the closest representatives of the community and they raise and tackle critical local issues.

Ssembatya Ismael, a political assistant at the Parliament of Uganda, also noted that the three-part story was widely watched in Kampala and across Uganda, and generated a lot of discussion. “People are still watching these video clips as they recorded them on their phones,” he told EJN in September 2024. “They went to the extent of mobilizing others to watch the series, with those without television sets watching at their neighbors.” He added that locals took the broadcasts’ findings to vigils, wedding ceremonies and other communal events.

For generations, the Buikwe forest has been a source of pride for its community. They’ve depended on it in diverse ways: for food, for firewood and material to thatch roofs, and for traditional medicine. The fertile soil was farmed to feed their families, with the surplus sold locally and regionally. Bayigga described it as a “breadbasket” of Uganda.

“Our forefathers took great care of the resource, and they bequeathed it to us still intact,” the MP said. But recently, cartels with permits from no less than the NFA (National Forest Authority) have descended into the forests with ill intentions.”

“From what I discovered in my research, the powerful use state security, cut timber, export some and trade the rest within the country. They will also ask for permits to restore what they have destroyed. Except that the restored ‘forest’ ceases to be public; the individuals have control and ownership.

In the long run, they take both the land and the trees. They predominantly restore forests with eucalyptus and pine due to the growing demand from the real estate industry, which makes use of the timber for roofing and scaffolding,” explained Scovia.

She added that scientists across the country have long flagged the environmental consequences of replacing slow-growing Indigenous trees like the African elemi—which harbor biodiversity and are used for food and medicine—with alien species, particularly those that siphon a lot of water from the soil and exacerbate drought conditions.

“This is against the law,” Bayigga insisted during the interview with EJN at his office in the Parliament Building. “We know the names of the main actors, NFA leaders and government ministers whose names we have advanced to IGG. As I wrote in the letter, we call upon the Inspector General of Government to investigate the matter, hold the culprits accountable and revert the deforested land to sub-counties for direct supervision and forest restoration.”

Once Scovia’s investigation was underway, several NFA officials were arrested for their role in illegal deforestation.

One of the perpetrators apprehended included Jude Pitua, a former forest supervisor for Mabira Central Forest Reserve. He was charged on April 30, 2024, at the Kampala Anti- Corruption Court and remanded over neglect of duty and alleged failure to protect the forest.

Mabira is a rainforest in Buikwe District, a protected reserve since 1932 that is home to a rich diversity of species like the endangered primate, the Uganda mangabey found only in Uganda.

Both Scovia and the MP Bayigga are of the opinion that after Scovia contacted the NFA, arrests were made to counter the possible backlash after the story was aired.

“Pitua was arrested when we reached out to NFA and the anti-corruption unit (part of Uganda’s State House) for a response,” said Scovia. “The two bodies took about two weeks to grant us an interview. They asked us to provide details and evidence we had collected. Although we did not surrender our evidence, we provided leads, which ultimately led to the arrest of Pitua and others.”

Bayigga said he hadn’t heard much about the cases since then, suggesting that the arrests of “small fish” could have been a “gimmick” to convince the IGG as well as the public that the NFA had taken action to weed out corruption within its ranks. “We need thorough investigations so the masterminds can be brought to justice.”

EJN reached out to the IGG’s office to follow up on the status of the investigation. After several attempts, they gave us an audience in April this year.

Munira Ali, the spokesperson for the IGG, acknowledged that they received Bayigga’s complaint in June 2024, which was reviewed and forwarded to the relevant directorate for investigation.

“As you know, as a policy we do not discuss matters under investigation; all I can say is that our investigators are on the field,” she said.

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