The recent increase in the price of sugar has sparked much unrest, numerous demonstrations and widespread dissatisfaction with the government. His Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni responded by attempting once again to bolster his long-standing proposal to grow more sugarcane on land currently occupied by the Mabira Forest Reserve. He then gave a number of reasons to support this proposal. However, his proposal has once again sparked nationwide turbulence and discontent, as the government has an obligation to protect and maintain national forest reserves, an obligation that the president appears to want to set aside. Furthermore, the Mabira Forest Reserve is the largest tropical rainforest in East Africa and offers great ecological and economic (in terms of tourism) benefits to the country. All Ugandans, secular and political, both from the ruling party and the opposition agree that sugar prices need to be kept down. However, the president is alienated by his proposal to use Mabira land for sugarcane cultivation. Indeed, never has the President received such strong opposition on any proposal he has put forward as the one he is currently facing on the Mabira proposal. However, the president provides some substantial reasons in support of his proposal, reasons that cannot simply be ignored. Apart from the fact that this project would generate around 3500 jobs and contribute around UGX11 billion to the treasury; among other reasons is first and foremost the fact that the Mabira forest reserve is the only piece of government-owned land closest to the sugar mill. This would then ease the costs of transporting the harvested sugarcane to the factory, thus lowering production costs, which in turn lowers the prices of... half the paper... that exploits the forest reserve. Furthermore, because the project does not result in permanent damage to the land, whenever new methods of providing sugar are developed in the future, the land can be restored to the reserve and used to regrow the forest. This sugar problem has presented us with a case of the natural struggle that exists between the need to protect and preserve the environment and the need to meet human demand for resources, food and agriculture. There certainly shouldn't be a single factor that ultimately takes precedence over the other. All these factors are to some extent equally important and whenever a conflict develops between them, solutions that seek to harmonize these factors should be sought and implemented rather than choosing to do nothing or act recklessly. Works Cited Rulekere, Gerald. The politics of sugar. UG Pulse, 2011. Web. 11/29/11.