April web

SOCIETY 1
hectares of forest cover in the last ten
years and still continues to lose more,
because annually, the country’s forest
cover reduces by 100,000 hectares. By
2017, the country’s forest cover was at
3.6 million hectares, thus, 15% of total
land area. And, over the last 10 years, the
Government has planted trees less than
150,000 hectares, creating a deficit.
In parts of the Encyclical letter, Pope
Francis is not happy with the fact that
people are replacing virgin forest with
plantations of trees, usually momcultures,
saying that it can compromise the
biodiversity. However, it’s not only forests
that are facing depletion, wetlands are
being lost to farming, sand mining and
many are being reclaimed to build homes
and industries.
Ministry of water and environment
posted on their website that, in 1995,
Uganda made history as the second
country worldwide, after Canada, to pass
a wetlands policy. The National Policy
for the Conservation and Management
of Wetlands is based on five objectives
which revolve around the principles
“
In the Laudato Si,
Pope Francis warns
everyone about pollution.
He notes that exposure
to atmospheric pollutants
produces a broad
spectrum of health
hazards, especially for the
poor and causes millions
of premature deaths.
“
of sustainability, improving wetlands
productivity and diversity and good
governance. Additional legislation
enacted that strengthened this policy
included; the Environment Act of 1995,
Land Act 1997, Local Government Act
1997, Environment Impact Assessment
Regulations 1998, the Wetland
Regulations 2000 and the Constitution
2010. These, and many other laws,
provide the legal framework that is
designed to ensure the protection and
wise use of wetlands.
Despite all this legal scaffolding,
wetlands continue to be degraded and
their area across the country is below that
recorded in the 90s. In the urban areas,
there is indiscriminate encroachment
for settlements while in the rural areas
there is much conversion to agriculture.
The data shows that the national area
of wetlands declined by 30 per cent
between 1994 and 2008. Although
between 2008 and 2014, there was an
increase in area under wetlands, this has
been a meagre 0.03 per cent increase:
from 26,307km2 in 2008 to 26,315 km2
in 2014 (MWE, 2014).
There is decline in the different river
basins, and the extent of decline varies
from over 53.8 percent in the Lake
Victoria basin to 14.7 percent in the Lake
Albert drainage basin. The Ministry warns
that wetlands are important in the society,
providing a range of ecological and
socio-economic functions, like; erosion
prevention, moderation of extreme flows,
sediment traps, climate modification, soil
formation, maintenance of water tables
in surrounding lands, and as centres of
biodiversity and wildlife habitat, food,
medicines, water supply, fisheries, dryseason
grazing for livestock, nutrient
and toxin retention, and tourism, among
other benefits. They are also important
for aesthetic, recreational and spiritual
reasons.Extracts from the Pope’s Laudato
Si also states that caring for ecosystems
demand far- sightedness; tasking
everyone to obtain significant benefits
by making the rest of humanity, present
and future pay extremely high costs for
environmental deterioration.
Recently in Uganda, another fight on
environmental degradation was turned
to Murchison and Uhuru water falls in
a bid by government to reduce the
shortage of electricity in the country.
In February 2020, cabinet in Uganda
approved a feasibility study to determine
the justification of constructing a hydro
power dam at Murchison falls National
Park. State Minister for Energy, Simon
D’Ujanga told MPs on Parliament
Committee for Natural Resources that
the findings will inform government’s
next course of action on whether or not
to construct the controversial dam on
River Nile.
In his presentation, Mr. D’Ujanga said
government signed a memorandum
of understanding with Bonang Energy
and Power Ltd from South Africa on
December 12, 2017, to do the study,
and applied for a permit with Electricity
Regulatory Authority (ERA) to carry out
the study. Interestingly, on the same river
Nile sits; Bujagali Power station, Kiira
power station, Nalubaale power station,
Isimba power station, Karuma power
station, Ayago Power station and the
oldest Owen Falls dam.
In Uganda, the recent census indicated
that the population is growing at a rate
of 3.2 percent per annum and has almost
tripled from 12.6 million in 1980 to 34.8
million in 2014 (UBOS, 2014). The country
is rapidly urbanising with the rate at 6.6
percent in 2014 (UBOS, 2014).
The high population creates high demand
for land and enormous pressure on the
natural resources for food, medicines,
fuel wood, clay mining for bricks and
other raw materials.
APRIL 2020
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