GREEN EXCLUSIVES EPISODE II, PART I | Inside ECOTRUST's 27-Year Journey of Turning Nature into Opportunity

What the report says

The Nile Post reports that the Environmental Conservation Trust of Uganda (ECOTRUST) is marking 27 years of work in conservation, restoration and conservation finance. The piece traces the organisation’s origins to a USAID grants management unit that later became a Ugandan body, and says ECOTRUST has remained in operation through changing political, donor and climate conditions.

According to the article, ECOTRUST now works with more than 54,000 smallholder households across five landscapes, supports the restoration or improved management of more than 70,000 hectares, and has helped mobilise conservation funding, including through biodiversity credits and carbon-market activity. Executive Director Pauline Nantongo Kalunda, in an interview with environmental journalist Joshua Kagoro, described the group’s approach as one that links environmental protection with livelihoods rather than treating the two as competing goals.

The report says ECOTRUST focuses its projects in and around areas of high biodiversity value, including Queen Elizabeth National Park, Rwenzori Mountains National Park, Murchison Falls National Park and Mount Elgon, as well as parts of Northern Uganda. It works with communities on co-management arrangements and land-use plans intended to make tree planting and restoration more economically attractive for smallholder farmers. The article says this model has helped support community businesses and promote restoration, while also seeking to reduce pressure on protected areas.

More broadly, the piece presents ECOTRUST as part of a wider shift in conservation thinking in Uganda and across Africa: nature is increasingly being framed not only as something to protect, but also as an asset that can generate income and climate benefits when managed sustainably.