By Witness Radio team
In 2002, Global Woods Limited allegedly acquired a 49-year lease on 12,182 hectares where thousands of local communities were deriving their livelihood, forcefully and violently evicted them, and later turned the land into a commercial tree plantation. Before resolving land grabbing, human rights violations and abuse issues with the victim community, the company is sold off. Witness Radio – Uganda has learned.
The monoculture (pine and eucalyptus) tree plantation was certified by the CarbonFix Standard in January 2009, which enables global woods to sell certified carbon credits to interested buyers.
Leveraging on its contacts, the plantation attracted many financiers namely, the British International Investment under the GEF Africa Sustainable Forestry Fund LP managed by Global Environment Facility and Africa Forestry Fund II from Criterion Africa Sustainable Forestry Management, DANIDA, and the European Union among others supported the cause.
Kikonda tree plantation located in Kyankwanzi district has been a beneficiary of the 16 million Euros (over 65 billion Ugx) Sawlog Production Grant Scheme (SPGS) III implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Ministry of Water and Environment.
The five-year project was designed to meet long-term industrial and market demand for sawlog products by establishing commercial plantations and ensuring downstream processing and utilization efficiency of forest resources.
With all resources at its disposal, Global Woods Limited overlooked standards of responsible investments. The company never consulted the pastoralist and farming community occupying the land as they were unaware of the project.
Instead, with support from government security forces including the Uganda Police Force, over 10,000 people were forcefully and violently evicted from their land.
Cries and grief locked more than 30 villages namely; Kakindu, Neeme, Nakibizi, Ngando, Kalungu, Kiwamirembe, Kachwamango, Bulaza, Kyebajojjo, Rwenkonge, Kyambogo, Mbari, Kikonda, Kasambya, Kyiryakye, Kiyigikiwa, Ndaga, Kiteredde, Kyakabuga among others as locals faced extreme violence with no alternative settlement in the then, Kiboga district.
The local population lost homes, and family fields to the company, and dozens of local people were reportedly arrested and slapped with trumped-up criminal charges. Other locals claim that the company workers and their agents looted dozens of animals and different types of grains found in people’s granaries.
Global Woods Limited is also accused of destroying a water dam worth millions of Uganda Shillings at Kigando village constructed in 1992 to provide water to animals of the local farming communities. The construction of the water dam was financed by the Irish Aid from the Irish tax Payers’ money. Land bordering the plantation is allegedly grabbed at gunpoint too. One of the victims who never wanted his name to be mentioned here due to fear of reprisals, reported that he surrendered his 6.879 hectares of land on a private Mailo land tenure to the company without compensation. He further narrated that, as the plantation continues expanding on other people’s land, he fears losing the remaining piece of land too.
Additionally, the neighboring communities claim that they continue losing their animals as a result of chemicals used on the plantation. “Some animals usually come out blind, while others tend to have miscarriages. And at the end, they die.” One of the herders told the Witness Radio team. He further claims that in 2017, he lost over 30 heads of cattle, calling for the regulation of chemical use on the plantation.
Without resolving the harmful impacts caused to the local communities as some highlighted above, Global Woods Limited plantation in Kikonda has been sold to Nile Fibre Board Limited at a cost not yet established by Witness Radio – Uganda.
Global Woods AG is a Germany-based Company founded by a former Green politician from the European Parliament, Mr. Manfred Vohrer. The company has different tree projects in Paraguay and Argentina. Global-woods International remains assisting the Kikonda project in promoting and selling carbon credits.
Recently, Witness Radio – Uganda landed on a document indicating that Criterion Africa Partners, Inc. (“CAP”), a private equity firm investing in the forestry sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, announced that its portfolio company Global Woods AG (“GW”) had completed the sale of its Uganda timber plantation to Nile Fibre Board Ltd. (“NFB”).
“The sale of Global Woods’ plantations to Nile Fibre Board represents a successful outcome for all stakeholders involved,” said Jim Heyes, CAP’s Managing Director responsible for East Africa. “CAP is pleased to hand the reins to a family-owned local company.”
The Nile Fibre Board Limited (NFB) is a subsidiary of Nileply Woods. NFB now holds the FSC Chain of Custody (COC) and FSC Forest Management certificates upon taking over 12,182ha of Kikonda Forest reserve from Global Woods AG.
The Nile fibreboard has a processing plant in the Nakasongola district in Central Uganda, which produces Melamine Faced Boards (MFB) used in the furniture and construction industry. The two companies (Nile Fibre Board Limited and Nile Plywood Board) are owned by the Sarrai Group of Companies.
The Sarrai group owns more than ten (10) other companies. Some are Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, Kinyara Sugar Works Limited, Hoima Sugar Limited, and Tulip properties and others are mentioned in land-grab scandals, causing tens of thousands of indigenous and local communities to landlessness and homeless.
