Road works have become threat to wetlands

Mar 09, 2011

EDITOR: I am a regular user of the Kampala- Mbarara highway. I also travel a lot on the Mbarara, Ntugamo, Kabale and Kisoro highway. There are road works going on, on these and many other highways in the country.

EDITOR: I am a regular user of the Kampala- Mbarara highway. I also travel a lot on the Mbarara, Ntugamo, Kabale and Kisoro highway. There are road works going on, on these and many other highways in the country.

This is great because of the benefits a good transport network brings to our economy especially at a time when we are embracing regional markets. However, my concern is the threat these roads works have posed to our forests, wetlands and land along these routes when the country is grappling with the effects of climate change.

The forests between Kampala and Masaka and the highland bamboo forest between Kabale and Kisoro have been partly cleared to widen the road. Deforestation has disastrous consequences as forest cover protects and stabilises soils, recycles nutrients and regulate the water cycle.

Without them, land erodes and rainfall patterns are disrupted bringing widespread drought which affects food security. The swamps and wetlands along the Kampala-Mbarara and Kabale-Kisoro roads have been filled with stones and soil to maintain the road width.

This has caused some of them to dry up. For instance, the wetland before Nsangi is already drying up. The once vibrant River Katonga is no more! Wetlands and swamps serve as nurseries for countless bird species and indigenous fish and help in filtering water before joining big streams and lakes.

They help in formation of rainfall and are the National Water and Sewerage Corporation catchment water supply for major towns along these routes.

As wetlands dry up, rivers dwindle to seasonal trickles and underground water leaches away leading to a decline in agricultural activity and reduction in yields from rain-fed agriculture.

I call upon NEMA to carry out an environment cost benefit analysis these works pose.

Joel J. Muhanguzi
Opportunity Uganda, Mubende



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