Flower farms drive fish away from Lutembe

trueUntil World Environment Day, June 5, in a campaign, Save Lake Victoria, Vision Group media platforms are running investigative articles, programmes and commentaries highlighting the irresponsible human activities threatening the world’s largest fresh water lake.

By Francis Kagolo

From a distance, everything looks beautiful. Boats roped on nearby trees and fishermen gossiping loudly gives a picture of a normal landing site.

But horrendous tears are hidden behind the loud voices of dozens of fishermen at Ddewe, a landing site at Lutembe bay on Lake Victoria in Wakiso district.

Abubakar Munyagwa, the chairman of Lutembe Wetland Users’ Association, explains that the bay was endowed with thousands of fish that sustained hundreds of fishermen in the area. But the fish catch has since dwindled apparently following pollution from the nearby flower farms.

“We used to have a lot of fish, especially Nile Perch and Tilapia. But today you can spend over five hours on the lake and return with only two or three fish,” Munyagwa said.

Lutembe wetland is one of the few Ramsar sites in Uganda that are among the world's most productive environments. Incidentally the site today houses about five flower farms including Melissa, Aurum Roses, Ugarose, Expressions and Rosebud Ltd.

A member of the Ramsar site protection team says some sections of the farms are barely 30 meters from the lake in contravention of environmental protection laws that require a buffer zone of at least 200 metres.

Ironically, flower farming is one of the most chemical-intensive agricultural ventures, which unfortunately requires high volumes of water for irrigation. This is the reason flower farms are situated near lakes.

In Kenya, for instance, Lake Naivasha, the only fresh water ecosystem in the eastern Rift Valley, is threatened due to heavy pollution caused by large-scale flower farming.

Munyagwa, who is also the chairman of the Beach Management Unit (BMU) at Ddewe landing site, said Lutembe bay was one of the biggest breeding areas for fish in Lake Victoria. Today, the fish have deserted their once exquisite breeding place.

Although the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) cleared the farms at the beginning, some of them have expanded past the 200 meters protected area from the lake.

In the early 2000s, Rose Bud owned by city tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia, embarked on an extension project, which NEMA officials suspected was to deposit soil on 60ha to create more land for the cultivation of flowers. More than 20ha of the wetland at Lutembe had been destroyed then.

However, in 2003 NEMA ordered Rosebud to restore part of the lake’s catchment area, which was destroyed during the expansion of the farm.

NEMA also faulted Rosebud over extracting water and discharging waste water into the lake illegally.

Last year in February, Wakiso district chairman Matia Lwanga Bwanika led other officials for an impromptu visit to the farm and discovered waste dumping into the lake and reclaiming of the surrounding swamps for expansion going on.

The district henceforth stopped Rosebud’s expansion programmes until the company carried out an environment audit.

Bwanika revealed that the public were constantly lodging complaints with the district authorities about Rosebud’s activities, especially dumping and pollution of the lake waters, which affect the natural filtering system (papyrus) and the reclaiming of the swamps.

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Flowers packed at the final code store at Wagagai, off Entebbe road before being transported to the airport for export to Europe.

The district Chief Administrative Officer, David Higenyi, said on Monday that he believed Rosebud had stopped expanding because they have not reported back to the district since their projects were halted last year.

But a source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said hundreds of other villagers had also invaded the wetland.

“We have tried to chase them, but they are adamant; they say unless the other flower farms are stopped, they won’t also leave the wetland.”

Fishermen and other villagers in Lutembe last year petitioned the inspectorate of government, lamenting that chemicals from the flower farms were hindering fish production.

“We used to have a lot of bees which helped in pollination. The bees have also died because of the chemicals. We have on several occasions asked Rosebud to stop expanding, but he refused,” said Munyagwa.

However, when contacted, Sudhir denied polluting the lake saying they had put in place measures to mitigate the problem, including a $1m waste water recycling plant last year.

“We are not contaminating the lake anymore. Last year is last year. There are no more issues”, Sudhir said, adding that Rosebud was now in NEMA’s good books.

Rosebud farm manager Ravi Kumar also said the company had embarked on “a lot of testing” to ensure no chemical entered the lake. He also said they had started carrying out environmental audits as ordered by the district environmental officials last year.

“There’s no proof of pollution. We follow standards,” said Kumar.

NEMA boss Dr. Tom Okurut said they were yet to carry out new inspection to confirm Rosebud’s compliance with environmental regulations.

Flower chemicals deadly

A report published by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) in June, 2012 revealed that many flower farms in Uganda still use perilous chemicals banned in most developed countries yet there are no proper waste management systems in place.

Some of the chemicals include Folio Gold, Impulse, Meltatox and Silwet Gold among others. NAPE says these are highly toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms and may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment.

The report says illegal chemicals have caused worse ecological impacts to surrounding communities including contamination of water bodies and reduced bee population, which affects fruit yields.

According to the report, the problem is exacerbated by the inadequate funding to regulatory agencies like NEMA.

“I grew up fishing. Before flower farms were established, you could get 15 Nile Perch in just five hours. This is no longer possible. The fish has disappeared due to the chemicals,” said Yosamu Katende, the BMU advisor at Ddewe.

Richard Kimbowa, an environmentalist, warned that unless the pollution from flower farms is addressed, it posed dangerous long-term effects to both the fisheries sector and people’s lives.