equipment was introduced to Budongo to make mosaic parquetry flooring panels from
Cynometra. Nevertheless, mahoganies were the main species cut, and Plumptre (1996)
has shown that during the period from 1930 to 1989 mahogany production accounted
for more than half the output from Budongo’s mills, as is shown in Table 1.1.
Although this level of production sounds excessive, it was not so. The Budongo
Forest Working Plans according to which the felling was carried out were carefully
designed to prevent over-exploitation of timber species, which were felled according to
strict rules with felling cycles of 40, 60 and even 80 years designed to enable resump-
tion of felling after the recovery of each species. Today, certification has become
an important method which is designed to enable timber species in certificated, well-
managed, forests to survive. The process is becoming more widely accepted by the
timber producers, retailers and indeed by the public which has in the past boycotted
firms selling uncertificated hardwoods.
Sawmilling started in Budongo in 1926. Planting of mahoganies had actually started
four years earlier, in 1922, but without success (Willan 1989). Great efforts were made
to increase the stock of mahoganies in this forest, as well as outside it in plantations.
Seeds were grown in nurseries and seedlings planted inside and outside the forest. Details
of planting methods used inside the forest include planting in lines 150 ft apart, trees
being planted in groups of three 80 ft apart. Game scouts were used to shoot animals
that ventured near planted areas. A photograph showing lines of Khaya anthotheca
(mahogany) striplings growing in Budongo Forest is to be found in Eggeling (1940a).
This method seemed at first successful and in 1946 some 1350 acres were stocked in
lines 75 ft apart with trees 25 ft apart. Trees were planted mainly as striplings or stocks,
the roots being inserted into a pit 2 ft1 ft. By the end of 1946 Webb (1948) was able
to report that ‘the whole area is a pleasing sight and every species planted has made
good growth. For the first time Entandrophragma utile[one of the mahogany species]
shows promise but final results will not be known until the coming dry season has
passed.’ The early optimism proved to be unfounded. A combination of factors, includ-
ing the dry season, depredations by elephants (which, according to R. Plumptre, pers.
comm., enjoyed walking down the lines of trees and eating the tops of saplings) and
other browsing animals, diseases or other factors, mahogany regeneration by any other
means than natural has never really succeeded in Budongo. The striplings eventually
died or failed to thrive. By the time the British were ready to leave Uganda they had
abandoned all the different methods of mahogany planting in favour of ‘natural regen-
eration’, i.e. leaving the forest to produce its own crop of young mahoganies, and the
main silvicultural activity consisted of canopy opening and weeding by removal of
understorey climbers and other impediments to the growth of young mahoganies. Man
in the service of nature rather than the other way round.
By 1960 Budongo Sawmills, the largest sawmill in Uganda, was producing 600 tons
of sawn timber each month. A series of 10-yearly Working Plans had led to a highly
sophisticated cyclical system of selective logging, with minimum girths strictly adhered
to and, depending on the species, 40-year, 60-year and 80-year rotations being started
(the number of years being the time to elapse between felling and returning to the same
Timber 15