Butaleja leaders worry over wetland encroachment
People harvest rice in Namatala Wetland in Budaka District. PHOTO BY YAHUDU KITUNZI
BUTALEJA- Leaders in Butaleja District have expressed concern over the massive encroachment on wetlands in the area.
The leaders say the wetlands in the district have reduced from 40 per cent to 20 per cent because of activities such rice growing and establishment of settlements.
The Butaleja environment officer, Mr Lamula Were, last Friday revealed that residents have deliberately failed to heed to directives and constructed residential houses and business premises in the wetlands.
“They have cultivated and settled in wetlands, forestry reserves, river banks and lakes shores at will,” Mr Lamula said.
Mr Lamula said some of the affected wetlands include Doho-Namatala, Doho-Hibira, Doho rice scheme, Nakwiga, Nahinghande, and Nawasi among others.
“About 60 per cent of wetlands in the district have been encroached on and this dangerous to humanity,” he said.
He added: “The wetlands used to have water throughout the year but this has changed because the eco-system has been disturbed and it no longer functions preparedly,” she said.
Mr Lamula blamed the rampant floods in the district on massive encroachment of wetlands.
“We need collective efforts to fight encroachment. We all need water without water, there is no production,” he said.
The 2017 district environment report indicates that residents have violated environmental guidelines more than other districts in the country.
According to the report, many many residents force their into swamps and other wetlands.
But Mr Lamula warned that residents who have persisted on living in wetlands saying their structures will be demolished.
Mr Juma Wagwe, a resident, attributed massive encroachment on the wetland to lack of boundaries to separate the wetlands and land suitable for settlement.
Justification
He said a group of experts from government visited the district in 2006 to demarcate the wetlands and were supposed to put mark stones that would have guided people on where to settle but in vain.
Mr Ahmada Naleba, a model rice farmer in Butaleja District, said encroaching on the wetland is justifiable because they entirely depend on rice as their source of income.
Mr Naleba, who owns hundreds of acres of rice gardens and fish ponds, said although it is a bad practice to construct houses in wetlands but government should not evict residents but find a possible solution for them.
The Butaleja District Kadhi, Sheikh Swaibu Mukama, acknowledged massive encroachment of wetlands in the area and asked government to sensitise residents on good agricultural practices.
The greater eastern regional wetlands coordinator at ministry of Water, Mr Deo Kabaalu, said wetlands in the region are under threats. “The cultivation of rice, sugar canes have greatly affected the wetlands in this region,” he said.
He said according to the recent wetlands management department study only 13 per cent of Ugandan land is covered by wetlands.
Mr Kabaalu, said Butaleja and Tororo are the districts have the highest wetland degradation rates in the region.
But the Resident District Commisisoner, MR Richard Gulume said: “We have started sensitizing residents’ about the dangers of encroaching on wetlands. This is the only way to save the wetlands.”
Mr Gulume, said they are in the process of evicting encroachers from wetlands.
He noted that the continued environmental degradation has changed the rain patterns in the areas thus affecting the agriculture sector.
About Butaleja
Butaleja is an agricultural district with 88.7 per cent of its income derived from natural resources.The district in Eastern Uganda boarders Mbale District to east, Tororo to the South, Budaka and Pallisa to the North and Namutumba to the west.
It’s surrounded by a mass of papyrus mashes and wetland systems including Doho-Namatala and Mpologoma in the North and West respectively.
