Mabira Central Forest Reserve in Uganda (MCFR) is facing biodiversity loss,
especially other tree species in the paper mulberry dominated area due to
Charcoal burning activities and the presence of paper mulberry (Broussonetia
papyrifera ). Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera ) in the family Moraceae
or Morus papyrifera is found mostly in the production zone identified as
hotspot of biodiversity in Mabira central Forest reserve. Several studies in
western and East Africa have indicated that paper mulberry consumes a lot of
ground water which may reduce water availability for other species and lead
to reduced growth level of native species around. This study has tried to investigate
the influence of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera ) presence
on the loss of native tree species in buffer and production zone in MCFR. The
study used 1 km transects and thirty plots of 20 m × 10 m each. The index of
Shannon and Simpson were used for species diversity and Jaccard similarity
index was used for species similarity. The overall non-paper mulberry plant
species or native tree species richness decreased significantly (76.92%) (P =
0.04) from the paper mulberry dominated area within the production zone of
Mabira central forest reserve. The Shannon Wiener diversity index was 2.7
for production, 2.4 buffer and 0.8 for paper mulberry dominated area, which
simply means that the paper mulberry dominated area was less diverse than
the two other study sites. Seven hundred sixteen (716) trees were found in total
with 56 different tree species where only one species which is paper mulberry
was found 233 times and only 483 times of the 55 native species. Mabira
central forest reserve is at risk of losing its natural forest in the years to come.
This Impact is likely to increase with the increasing of paper mulberry planting.
To avoid this the management should think on not planting paper mulberry
trees within the natural forest and stop charcoal burning activities.