Agriculture ministry develops guidelines for biodiversity restoration in Elgon region

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The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, in partnership with ICUN have developed guidelines for the restoration and conservation of landscapes in the Elgon region.

Recent studies by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) established that the region has lost most of the natural vegetation due to increased farming activities coupled with the increasing demand for energy in the form of fuel wood for cooking.

During the launch of guidelines on Wednesday, May 20, in Kampala, the Commissioner of Crop Inspection and Certification in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Paul Mwambu, said that while farmers go about their activities to increase food production, they engage in harmful practices that cause degradation of the environment.

He expressed hope that the policy guidelines will manage the negative impacts of some of the farming activities.

Mwambu said that, much as agriculture is the backbone of Uganda's economy, the sector's expansion and intensification, if not carefully managed, will threaten the very natural capital that sustains it.

“Practices such as excessive and unsafe use of agricultural chemicals degrade soils and water, harm biodiversity and increase risks to human health and market access,” Mwambu said.

Moses Egaru, the Country Director of ICUN Uganda, explained that the policy briefs will promote biodiversity-friendly reforms in two critical sectors of agriculture and energy, in addition to minerals. 

He explained that through their research, they found out that the need to increase agricultural production while sourcing firewood for cooking was the primary driver of biodiversity loss.

“This has an impact on the land due to the methods they use, like the pesticides, which have an impact on biodiversity in such a way that there are some restricted pesticides that are being deployed by the farmers; these affect the fertility of soil, affect the microorganisms within the soil, and affect pollinators such as bees, water sources, among others,” Egaru said.

In some areas, farmers tend to drain wetlands and water sources in addition to polluting the water sources and the water used by both livestock and humans, in addition to other living organisms, Egaru added.

For the natural resources to recover,  he said that the policy briefs have outlined a number of interventions like climate-smart agriculture, provision of alternatives to biomass use for cooking, among others, in order to restore the biodiversity in selected areas.

The guidelines

The policy briefs include tracking the functional national land use policy, where spatial planning will be implemented in districts and landscapes to protect wetlands, forests and steep slopes while indicating areas that are fit for farming.

The policy briefs will guide on how to strengthen the enforcement of the environmental protection laws and regulations, including compulsory environmental and social impact assessments for large-scale agriculture backed by credible monitoring penalties.

They will also guide on the phasing out of high-risk pesticides while promoting safer alternatives, and the fourth one is to maintain diversified targets and indicators across sector plans.

The guidelines also advocate for retooling of extension workers to scale climate-smart agriculture, agro-ecology and sustainable and money emission to help farmers to increase yields, reduce import waste and restore soil and the natural habitat.

The development of the briefs was funded by the French Development Agency (AFD), and participating organisations include NEMA, the Ministry of Water and Environment, among others.