Kalangala is sitting on a time bomb
Oct 17, 2009
A team of National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) staff recently set off from Kampala to Kalangala. The mission was to study the status of cultural forests in the district following massive deforestation and degradation of rainforest
By Julius Babyetsiza
A team of National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) staff recently set off from Kampala to Kalangala. The mission was to study the status of cultural forests in the district following massive deforestation and degradation of rainforests in the country.
Up to the mid-19th century, central Uganda and a large part of western and eastern regions were covered by virgin rainforests, most of which have been destroyed and replaced with farmlands and urban centres.
Thanks to NEMA’s efforts and NGOs like NAPE, a number of wetlands like the ones along the Kampala-Masaka road have not yet been destroyed. The hot and humid weather conditions that one would expect to find at the Equator crossing at Mbizinya-Buwama is no more because of climate change. This has been made worse by the Government’s choice to replace natural forests with artificial man-made systems. The result is that widespread prolonged droughts have engulfed a large part of the country causing famine, hunger and starvation. In the dry belts of Nyabushozi, Mubende, Nakasongola and Luwero cattle are dying due to lack of pasture and drinking water. In some of those places, a cow is sold for sh10,000!
However, the worst of all human excesses in ‘conquering’ nature can be seen in Kalangala. Up to a decade ago, Kalangala was like the biblical Canaan—a land of milk and honey.
Kalangala is, or rather was Ugand’s goldfish made of 84 islands in Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world, with abundance of fish, until recently. The islands have fertile soils covered with equatorial rainforests with hot and wet climate, and hot and humid weather conditions. These are neutralised by cool lake breezes. It used to rain virtually everyday.
The rich biodiversity characterised by monkeys is testimony that there was abundant wild food even before growing of crops was started on the islands. However, the ‘goldfish’ has been devoured by devious man!
What has befallen Bugala Island, the largest of the 53 inhabited islands, with largest social infrastructure, hosting the seat of the district headquarters, may be compared to what befell Europe during the Dark Ages when the Barbarians destroyed the civilisation. In less than a decade, BIDCO, on the invitation of the Government, has destroyed and degraded the richest treasure of Bugala— the tropical rainforests and replaced them with palm oil tree (grass) plantations! The company seems not to have come to make genuine profits from palm oil business only. They have grabbed even the communal resources among which are sand quarries and rocky areas, sinking cultural lakes and filling caves. They have obstructed rivers as well as degraded cultural forests!
For instance, it is apparent that with the application of fertilisers, palm oil planted in the sand quarries in the sandy lowland in Mukoye was to deny local people access to the only sand quarries in Bugala. The soils in Kalanga are not good for brick-making and much of the sand and bricks are got from the mainland in Masaka. BIDCO has occupied the only lowland in Bugala where there is suitable sand and planted it with palm oil trees! Furthermore, BIDCO does not allow people to lumber the felled trees in the plantation fields that the company has degraded on the former rainforest land, preferring that the felled trees rot and decay in the palm oil plantations. Besides, BIDCO does not allow palm oil tree out-growers to whom it has extended loans, to practise intercropping!
Clearly, agroforestry and tourism are better alternatives for Kalangala than palm oil plantations. Following BIDCO’s severe forest degradation for palm oil plantations, the district has now started experiencing dry seasons where there was rain virtually everyday!
Poverty in Kalangala can be blamed both on the local and central governments’ poor or lack of planning and bad economic policies. If the district’s development models were tested between, say agroforestry, tourism and palm oil plantations, would palm oil plantations have been the best development model?
More than a decade since the commissioning of palm oil plantations, the out-growers have acquired loans from BIDCO yet they don’t know the price at which they will sell their palm oil products. The palm oil plantations have grossly and negatively affected the climate. The workers in palm oil plantations are paid peanuts to the extent that hardly any local youth, men and women work in the plantations. Only people who have been brought from distant lands work in the palm oil plantations, but many of these are stranded because they can hardly save any thing out of the low wage! There are more questions than answers to BIDCO’s activities in Kalangala. BIDCO came promising to build social infrastructure and social amenities – airport, university, health centres, schools, good roads and bringing electricity.
However, more than 10 years down the road, their most visible contribution is nothing but deforestation and forest degradation. Kalangala is sitting on a time bomb! Who will detonate it?
The writer is the Programme Officer for Research and Computer Systems Administration
NAPE
Nagenda is out of the country. He will file next week
A team of National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) staff recently set off from Kampala to Kalangala. The mission was to study the status of cultural forests in the district following massive deforestation and degradation of rainforests in the country.
Up to the mid-19th century, central Uganda and a large part of western and eastern regions were covered by virgin rainforests, most of which have been destroyed and replaced with farmlands and urban centres.
Thanks to NEMA’s efforts and NGOs like NAPE, a number of wetlands like the ones along the Kampala-Masaka road have not yet been destroyed. The hot and humid weather conditions that one would expect to find at the Equator crossing at Mbizinya-Buwama is no more because of climate change. This has been made worse by the Government’s choice to replace natural forests with artificial man-made systems. The result is that widespread prolonged droughts have engulfed a large part of the country causing famine, hunger and starvation. In the dry belts of Nyabushozi, Mubende, Nakasongola and Luwero cattle are dying due to lack of pasture and drinking water. In some of those places, a cow is sold for sh10,000!
However, the worst of all human excesses in ‘conquering’ nature can be seen in Kalangala. Up to a decade ago, Kalangala was like the biblical Canaan—a land of milk and honey.
Kalangala is, or rather was Ugand’s goldfish made of 84 islands in Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world, with abundance of fish, until recently. The islands have fertile soils covered with equatorial rainforests with hot and wet climate, and hot and humid weather conditions. These are neutralised by cool lake breezes. It used to rain virtually everyday.
The rich biodiversity characterised by monkeys is testimony that there was abundant wild food even before growing of crops was started on the islands. However, the ‘goldfish’ has been devoured by devious man!
What has befallen Bugala Island, the largest of the 53 inhabited islands, with largest social infrastructure, hosting the seat of the district headquarters, may be compared to what befell Europe during the Dark Ages when the Barbarians destroyed the civilisation. In less than a decade, BIDCO, on the invitation of the Government, has destroyed and degraded the richest treasure of Bugala— the tropical rainforests and replaced them with palm oil tree (grass) plantations! The company seems not to have come to make genuine profits from palm oil business only. They have grabbed even the communal resources among which are sand quarries and rocky areas, sinking cultural lakes and filling caves. They have obstructed rivers as well as degraded cultural forests!
For instance, it is apparent that with the application of fertilisers, palm oil planted in the sand quarries in the sandy lowland in Mukoye was to deny local people access to the only sand quarries in Bugala. The soils in Kalanga are not good for brick-making and much of the sand and bricks are got from the mainland in Masaka. BIDCO has occupied the only lowland in Bugala where there is suitable sand and planted it with palm oil trees! Furthermore, BIDCO does not allow people to lumber the felled trees in the plantation fields that the company has degraded on the former rainforest land, preferring that the felled trees rot and decay in the palm oil plantations. Besides, BIDCO does not allow palm oil tree out-growers to whom it has extended loans, to practise intercropping!
Clearly, agroforestry and tourism are better alternatives for Kalangala than palm oil plantations. Following BIDCO’s severe forest degradation for palm oil plantations, the district has now started experiencing dry seasons where there was rain virtually everyday!
Poverty in Kalangala can be blamed both on the local and central governments’ poor or lack of planning and bad economic policies. If the district’s development models were tested between, say agroforestry, tourism and palm oil plantations, would palm oil plantations have been the best development model?
More than a decade since the commissioning of palm oil plantations, the out-growers have acquired loans from BIDCO yet they don’t know the price at which they will sell their palm oil products. The palm oil plantations have grossly and negatively affected the climate. The workers in palm oil plantations are paid peanuts to the extent that hardly any local youth, men and women work in the plantations. Only people who have been brought from distant lands work in the palm oil plantations, but many of these are stranded because they can hardly save any thing out of the low wage! There are more questions than answers to BIDCO’s activities in Kalangala. BIDCO came promising to build social infrastructure and social amenities – airport, university, health centres, schools, good roads and bringing electricity.
However, more than 10 years down the road, their most visible contribution is nothing but deforestation and forest degradation. Kalangala is sitting on a time bomb! Who will detonate it?
The writer is the Programme Officer for Research and Computer Systems Administration
NAPE
Nagenda is out of the country. He will file next week