Buhweju: The desecrated jewel of Uganda

 To mark 50 years of Uganda’s independence, New Vision will, until October 9, be publishing highlights of events and profiling personalities who have shaped the history of this country. Today, CHRIS MUGASHA pays some of Buhweju wetlands a visit and documents the plight of the fast disappearing natural resources under the watchful or chestration of man

The once fresh, green hills stand bare and thirsty, stripped of their natural beauty and crushing under the weight of human activity, the wetlands are in no better state either. Buhweju used to be the land of beautiful green hills covered with expansive tea and banana plantations. The valleys were a thick mane of papyrus and a source of water, but all this is no more. 

The beauty is disappearing under threat as gold miners, who have intensified their hunt for the dusty looking rocks.Viewing Nyakishana and Kikondera wetlands from a hilltop, one wonders whether anybody here knows the importance of protecting these God-given resources.Kikondera, the once thick wetland has now turned into a hive of gold miners who, unperturbed, carry out their routine cutting down the vegetation, digging and scooping out of earth and turning the land into a scene of clay-and-sand mounds and gaping ditches. 

Behind the mounds, patterns of smoke lazily glide into the sky as women prepare food, which the miners buy. Nobody seems bothered, none seem aware that the spirit of this once glorious wetland will soon return to haunt the population. All they say is their operations are legitimate, endorsed by the district leadership.“We have our licences; we pay our money to people who tendered mining activities from the district,” explains Ronald Ahimbisibwe, who says he has been mining for 15 years. 

“We cannot leave the wetlands nor stop mining because this is our office. This is where we get school fees for our children,” Ahimbisibwe adds.Richard Turyahebwa, the Nyakishana sub-county LCIII councillor, also a gold miner, explains that each gold miner pays sh20,000 annually in two installments before he or she is allowed to mine. 

“Sometimes the tenderers harass us and hunt us down using armed people if we fail to pay,” he narrates.Turyahebwa says before the area got district status, they were not paying any money to mine gold but after the elevation, they started paying. According to the gold miners, the tenderer normally visits, sometimes in the company of white men (Bazungu). 

Challenges 
Because wetlands are regarded a public natural resource, the gold miners have become untouchable and the land owners bordering the wetlands have no say because the Government took over ownership of wetlands. Since Buhweju local government considers the gold miners as contributors to the district coffers, their activities remain unchallenged.

“We cannot do anything to force these people off the wetland because they are authorised to mine,” says Deogratious Tushabe whose land partly stretches to Kikondera wetland.

According to the residents, the parish and sub-county chiefs are always in the wetlands monitoring, but they have never forced the gold diggers out. Some people whose land borders the wetlands no longer farm that land because the miners excavate beyond the wetlands.

“They go as far as destroying our crops,” says Tushabe. Amos Bejura, who had dug some fish ponds next to the swamps has since abandoned the project because the miners dug trenches and reclaimed the swamp.

Miria Ayebazibwe, another local, laments that women and girls no longer go to wetlands to collect water, grass, or firewood. “Those people are always naked; you cannot go there alone,” Ayebazibwe argues. Sending children to such a place to fetch water is risky because they can fall in the ditches or even be raped.

Environment desecrated 
The wetlands, which are the main sources of water for the residents and a catchment area for the main rivers like River Rwizi, double as latrines for the miners. “They spend the whole day in this place yet there are no latrines in the swamp, where do they defecate?” Tushabe asks.

Indeed, for homes in Kikondera I, Kikondera II and Kibimba parishes, which have been surviving on water from the Kikondera wetland, getting water for domestic use has a problem. In the areas the miners have exhausted and moved away, the farmers have jumped onto the reclaimed swamp and establish gardens of cabbages and sugarcane. Because of the hills, the wetlands and the thick vegetation, Buhweju had cool weather, with rainfall throughout the year, an issue that favoured agriculture.

The roads that used to be muddy and impassable have since turned dusty and in some months the temperatures rise to as high as 30°C, a phenomenon that was not heard of.Standing in her apple garden, which has not experienced rain in a while, Constance Bamuyaga, a local farmer says: “We are worried because it used to rain heavily here. These days we get more sunshine than rain.” Daudat Tumwebaze adds:

“We don’t know whether the laws have changed because we are seeing many things happening. Is it now legal to set up as farm in the swamp?”

The beginning 
According to the miners, gold mining in the area dates back to the colonial times. They suspect the gold deposits were first exploited by the colonialists whom they suspect made a kill from the mines. “ For us we are just picking the dregs,” they say.

Minimal benefits
The gold miners in Buhweju have forgotten that soon, they will feel the pinch. They have been in the gold mining business for years although there is nothing to show for it, all they have is the scorching heat, less rainfall for their crops and peanuts for the gold mined. A full matchboxful of the precious metal goes for sh7,000 but getting that much of gold depends on one’s luck.