NFA ED Okello Leaves Office After Six Years Tenure

The National Forestry Authority (NFA) Executive Director Tom Obong Okello has left office after a six year term in office leading the Authority .

The function was graced by the Minister of Water and Environment Hon Sam Cheptoris who has urged all civil servants to dedicate their time and commitment towards the public being result oriented during their time in in office.

Joining the NFA in July 2018, Mr. Okello set out with a vision to improve forest reserves management, address illegal activities, garner stakeholder support, increase tree planting, and enhance staff welfare. His tenure has yielded remarkable achievements, leaving the NFA stronger and more resilient with Increase in Forest Cover from 9.9% in 2017 to 12.4%.

This was achieved through the establishment of 6,766 hectares of new plantations by the NFA, 75,410 hectares by private tree farmers, and the distribution of 126,339,704 seedlings to the public.

While assuming office in 2018,Mr Okello said that, he joins NFA with an intolerance to illegalities and warned that he was not to sit and watch the country’s precious forest resources completely destroyed by few individuals involved in illegalities.

And during his tenure in office, hepromised to work with Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development together with Ministry of Water and Environment in cancelling illegal land titles in Forest reserves.

He also added that, “as NFA, they needed to be more accountable to the general public in implementing our mandate”. A task Mr Okello says he has fullfilled 

 " I intended to partner with all stakeholders in ensuring that forest degradation and deforestation trends are reversed and  NFA strengthen its partnership and coordination with partners and security agencies in an effort to stop illegalities in CFR’s". He said.

Currently, Forest cover stands at about 1.9 million hectares (ha), which is 10% of Uganda’s land cover area. The forests comprise both natural and plantations. “Natural forests” include both the tropical high forests (THF) and other naturally wooded land that falls within the definition of “forest”.

Tree Seed Center,

The Tree Seed Centre has built standard infrastructure to collect, process, test, store and distribute tree seeds of over 100 indigenous and exotic species.

 The laboratory is equipped to test seed for quality assurance using the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) Guidelines. For storage the Centre has ambient rooms, and the cold room (4oC).