Only 20 women have won the Nobel Peace Prize out of 92 men since the award was established in 1901 through the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor and philanthropist.
Last week, the 20th woman, María Corina Machado of Venezuela, joined that elite circle for leading the struggle for democracy in the face of authoritarianism.
Africa’s first female laureate, Prof Wangari Maathai, was honoured in 2004 for her fight for ‘sustainable development, democracy, and peace.’ Her Green Belt Movement made her the conscience of a continent. Uganda, too, once had a woman who seemed destined for similar glory, Beatrice Anywar, famously known as Mama Mabira.
In 2007, Anywar led massive protests against the government’s plan to give away part of the Mabira Forest Reserve to the Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (SCOUL). Her courage captured the national imagination; she stood up to power, and Ugandans rallied behind her to save one of the country’s most important ecosystems. That moment defined environmental activism in Uganda and gave her a profile worthy of international recognition.
Eighteen years later, however, the environmental defender has become the minister of Environment, and is now silent while the forests she once protected come under assault once again. On Monday, October 13, 2025 (pg 2), the Daily Monitor reported that the government had allocated 150 acres of Kitubulu Central Forest Reserve in Entebbe to a Chinese investor, Tian Tang Group, to build a $500 million complex of government offices, hotels, malls, and a hospital.
The plan, championed by State Minister for Investment Evelyn Anite with the approval of President Museveni, is justified as creating an ‘alternative capital city.’ The question, though, is whether we need to destroy a protected forest in pursuit of that vision.
Would China itself allow Ugandan investors to build malls in its reforested lands? According to FAO, China planted roughly 90 million acres of new forest between 2016 and 2020, while Uganda loses between 125,000 and 300,000 acres each year through deforestation.
The contrast is staggering: as China plants, Uganda clears. Local leaders, led by Entebbe Mayor Fabrice Ruhinda, say they were never consulted about the giveaway. They argue that Kitubulu Forest, one of the few remaining natural habitats along Lake Victoria, serves as a vital buffer protecting water quality and biodiversity.
In a democracy, their voices matter; mayors represent the wananchi, and projects of such scale should not proceed without public participation. Infrastructure is important, yes, but not at the cost of the very environment that sustains us. The same government that touts climate-action commitments at international conferences cannot justify turning its back on local conservation for short-term commercial gains.
Development could still proceed with far less environmental damage: a smaller parcel, say, 10 to 15 acres, within already degraded or idle land around Entebbe could host the proposed government complex. Uganda has vast brownfield sites, former industrial zones, and underutilised state land that could be repurposed without touching a protected forest.
True modernisation should balance economic growth with ecological integrity; building concrete over carbon sinks is neither visionary nor sustainable. And where is Mama Mabira? Her silence is deafening. The woman who once stood up to protect Uganda’s lungs now sits at the table of those cutting them down.
In Uganda, they say, you don’t talk while eating. So, one wonders, did Beatrice Anywar trade her chance at a Nobel Peace Prize for a ministerial appointment, and with it, her voice for Uganda’s forests?