Murram excavation: Wanyange's neglected environment threat

By Watuwa Timbiti

For years, Igenge and Wanyange hills soundly lay unperturbed by activities distances away – their greenery stood out intact, alluringly, even to the meanest eye.

From the farthest point, on the Jinja-Iganga road, the hills exuded a beckoning call, not  forgetting that early morning mist that beautifully hovered over them, making the Wanyange Girls’ students at its top passionately dread early morning prep sessions.

Almost in the opposite direction of Igenge and Wanyange, Mpumudde and Masese hills, too, imposingly stood out from the direction of  Jinja town, all veiled in green.

Sadly, we can only now have nostalgic images of this grandeur. About 20 years ago human activities began devouring the feet of this natural magnifi cence and wide abrasive reddish patches are now visible.

Excavation begins

Human settlements sprang up following a land bonanza fuelled by a clique in Busoga Kingdom and Jinja municipal council, resulting in land segmentation. Some plots being sold as low as sh300,000 in the early 1990s and 2000s, respectively.

Worse still, the hills, which shoulder the Kyabazinga’s palace, Wanyange Girls’ School and Masese Co-education Primary School and a cultural site, have over the years been desecrated, stripping them of their vegetative cover through murram excavation and subsistence farming.

According to the municipal council environment officer, Ernest Nabihamba, the municipal council engineering department and Walukuba- Masese division are responsible on the excavation on Masese hill–they are doing it for grading roads.

“However, in most cases councillors and members of the public bribe unauthorised council staff and excavate for their own use,” he says, adding that they even uprooted the trees we had planted on the hill to pave way for excavation.” He blames the continued unplanned excavation on the power struggles in the council and district.

“At one time, we stopped the excavations, but the politicians have usurped the roles and powers of institutions and the technocrats,” Nabihamba says. On Igenge and Mpumudde hills, a reliable source says Wilson Muwereza, the Busoga Kingdom prime minister, could be behind the excavation because he is the custodian of kingdom property.

“He has knowledge of what is happening there. Whatever is going on there is done during day time. So, he knows the people who are doing it and to whom they are paying the money,” the source says.

However, when contacted on phone, Muwereza says all exacavation had been stopped, expressing surprise that it is still going on.

“If the excavation is still going on at Igenge then the person in charge of security for that area is not doing his work. Let me find out what is  happening there and I must say it is illegal because we have not authorised anybody to operate from there,” he says, adding that he was equally concerned about the excavation on Wanyange Hill and tried to intervene by writing to the district authorities.

“The excavation on Wanyange is being done by individual plot owners – claiming it is their land. We have communicated to the district authorities to help us on this. I hope they will respond,” He says. 

Environmental effects of the excavation 

According to Victor Egwal, a Makerere University post graduate student of environmental science and natural resources, the rate at which the extraction is being done on these hills is alarming and yet this seems to be going unnoticed.

The affected hills, according to Egwal, were initially heavy rainfall regulators, but have now been reduced to hanging cliffs – sooner than later, they will come tumbling down in a mass of soil in case of continuous heavy rainfall, putting the surrounding communities in danger. 

“The extraction is steadily weakening the base of the hills. If caution is not taken, landslides should not come as a surprise,” he warns. According to the environment impact assessment guideline, Egwal says the constructors must rehabilitate the areas from where murram is extracted.

However, this is not being done, leaving behind gaping pits. The excavation, according to Egwal, has greatly resulted in loss of biodiversity (nature variety)–for example, species loss and reduction in genetic variability on the hills.

“The genetic diversity improves the likelihood that a plant or an animal species will be able to adapt to diseases, pests or a variation in the habitat. Species diversity, on the hand, sustains the equilibrium of an ecosystem,” he explains.

Egwal, who is a resident of Bugembe town council, one of the communities at the feet of Igenge and Wanyange, says the excavation has already affected the abiotic and biotic components of the hills.

“The loss of one component, especially an important “keystone” specie such as a pollinator, can trigger the breakdown of the whole system.

Farmers are already experiencing a reduction in crop yields in the surrounding villages as a result of reduction in the number of the pollinators,” he observes.

On the other hand, the vegetation on the hills, for example, used to serve as a storehouse for herbalists for their local medicine, now they have to fi nd their way to other areas.

The animals, too, have lost their habitats. “Some animals, especially monkeys have been forced to relocate. Others now invade homes and destroy crops as they search for food. 

Wanyange Girls School is already a victim - the monkeys eat up students’ food and enter teachers’ houses,” he says. They make a lot of noise on the roof, others stand on the window panes perhaps attending lessons, disrupting students’ attention,” Egwal adds.

Snakes, too, have invaded the neighbouring communities, perhaps protesting the destruction of their homes by the hands of unsustainable development.

Due to consequential erosion, Egwal says that there is now heavy sedimentation in the streams, rivers and swamps that feed Lake Victoria due to accumulation of silt particles and others elements, threatening aquatic life.

He adds that the excavation has not only resulted in landscape and terrain deformities, but in diseases such as malaria. 

“The large excavated dugouts on the hills have degraded the natural terrain, resulting in loss of valuable top soil. During rainfall, water fi lls the pits (ponding) and they become breeding places for mosquitoes,” Egwal says. 

Notably, dust is a major problem in the communities.  The runoff soil carried from the slopes does reduces visibility in case of wind and speed driving, but has also often caused respiratory problems in both humans and animals.

Way forward

If excavation is to continue, Egwal advises that trees, grass or any other environmentally – friendly vegetation should be planted on the slopes of the hills to minimise the environmental effects.

Nabihamba advises that proper excavation plans should be followed and for the pits created, the effects can be checked by fi lling them with organic garbage and when it piles up over time and trees can then be planted there and farming started.