NAIROBI, (Reuters) – Uganda will lose its entire  forest cover in the next 50 years if the government does not  embark on immediate efforts to halt rapid deforestation, a  forestry expert warned yesterday.

Forests and tree planting can help mitigate the effects of  global warming by increasing carbon storage and cutting  greenhouse gas emissions, experts say. Tropical deforestation  accounts for a fifth of emissions from human activities.

“We have been observing using satellite imagery that over  the last 15 years we have lost more that 1.5 million hectares of  forest cover,” Xavier Mugumya, Uganda’s forest management  specialist at the National Forest Authority, told Reuters.

“Uganda is likely to have very low if not completely no  forest cover within 50 years if nothing is done to reverse this  trend,” he said in an interview.

The east Africa nation’s forest cover has fallen to 3.5  million hectares in 2005, Mugumya said. Trees soak up carbon  dioxide as they grow and release it when they are burnt or rot.

The G8 agreed on Wednesday to try to limit global warming to  2 degrees Celsius and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80  percent. A new U.N. climate agreement is due to be signed in  Copenhagen in five months.

Rich countries agree they have to lead a climate fight after  enjoying two centuries of industrialisation and pollution, but  they disagree with developing nations on how much of the burden  they should carry under a new treaty.

“If nothing is done to stop the drivers of deforestation  then the sustenance the forests contribute to life and the  country’s biodiversity will be lost completely,” said Mugumya,  who is also Uganda’s international climate change negotiator.

Mugumya said that Uganda’s rapid population growth — one of  the highest in the world — was hurting the nation’s efforts to  combat deforestation.

Individuals also hold 70 percent of remaining forest land,  making it difficult to regulate depleting cover, Mugumya said.