We must save Uganda’s disappearing wetlands

In 2014, the Attorney General instructed the National Environment Management Authority and the Ministry of Water and Environment to recall all land titles that were issued on protected areas for cancellation. The move was aimed at controlling the alarming rate of wetland and forest degradation and encroachment. A big part of Kampala was, for instance, once a wetland. Today, the wetlands in Kampala are on the verge of extinction.
Wetland encroachment is not unique to the capital city. The State of the Environment report as of 2012 documents a worrying level of degradation, costing the economy enormous amounts of money on curative healthcare, water treatment, restoration of degraded ecosystems, among others. In the last 20 years, Uganda has lost about 570,000 hectares of wetlands in various parts of the country.
Wakiso, a district with both permanent and seasonal wetlands, particularly faces a major environmental crisis due to widespread wetland encroachment. In a four part series, Wakiso’s Disappearing Wetlands, starting today, Daily Monitor explores the extent of destruction of these wetlands. The situation on the ground is so grave that environmentalists now predict that the wetlands in Wakiso will be wiped out within a few years “because of the far-reaching infrastructural developments, urban migrations, a messy land tenure system, and institutional weaknesses of NEMA and the district land office.”
Efforts to reverse this trend are minimal and hampered by lack of political will. Wakiso District, for instance, has only one wetlands officer, Ms Stella Nalumansi, who has to inspect wetlands in Matugga, Nsangi, Nangabo, Kira, and Kigungu. This is close to impossible given the widespread invasion of the wetlands, sometimes by powerful people.
It is, therefore, not surprising that Ms Nalumansi paints a bleak picture of what lies ahead: “In less than 10 years, none of these wetlands will be in existence. When I look at the trends such as the land grabs and high rate of development, if we do not wake up, we are bound to lose them.”
This is the reality we must all wake up to as Ugandans otherwise the financial costs are huge. The Uganda Wetlands Atlas puts the cost of wetland destruction at nearly Shs2 billion annually, and contamination of water resources, which is partly caused by reduced buffering capacity of wetlands near open water bodies, to nearly Shs38 billion annually.
This newspaper is a strong advocate of environmental protection and our series is a clarion call to authorities, environmental activists and all Ugandans to save and restore the country’s wetlands.