Over 6,000 hectares of wetlands restored

Wetlands are among the most important natural resources in Uganda yet their destruction has continues unabated.

In 1994, wetland coverage on the surface area of Uganda was 15.6% but, over time this gradually reduced so much that by 2008, wetland coverage had fallen to 10.9%.

Collins Oloya, the commissioner wetland management at the Ministry of Water and Environment, says currently, the coverage is at 8.9% and it is projected that by 2040, it will only be left with only 1.6% of wetland.

"The changes are attributed largely to high population growth, expansion of land for agriculture, industries and urban expansion as well as climate change impacts," Oloya says.

During the financial year 2019/20, a number of interventions to mitigate wetland degradation were undertaken by the wetlands management department at the Ministry of Water and Environment among which included the following;

IMPROVED AWARENESS

The Ministry through the wetland management department continued to raise public awareness on wetland values, policy, as well as laws and regulations. Oloya says this was achieved through radio and television talkshows, distribution of printed and electronic materials as well as during the commemoration of the World Wetlands Day in Bushenyi district.

The department further developed and disseminated the Building Resilient Communities and Wetland ecosystems project Communication and Education Strategy to stakeholders and the strategy is currently being implemented in 24 Green Climate Fund project sites in eastern and southwestern Uganda.

"We have also mobilised and sensitised stakeholders in the three urban centres of Wakiso town council, Kira and Entebbe municipality on the process for the cancellation of titles in wetlands, their benefits and the implication on the affected titleholders," Oloya says.

"Such stakeholders' mobilisation and sensitisation sessions have contributed to the reduced litigation potential by the affected titles holder and the eventual cancellation of over 300 titles issued in wetlands in greater Kampala alone by the lands ministry. More sensitisation is planned to cover the entire country," he adds.

Also, the National Wetland Information System continued to support decision-making in the department through the production of maps to provide evidence during court sessions, compliance monitoring and enforcement as well as the general wetland coverage status. A total of 100 maps on average have been produced to both internally and against clientele request.

RESTORATION AND PROTECTION OF DEGRADED ECOSYSTEMS

A cumulative total of 6,642.939 hectares of critical wetlands were restored across the country.

The restoration process followed the approved wetland restoration guidelines where the involvement of all stakeholders is a prerequisite to ensuring commitment and ownership right from inception to the final outputs.

"The restoration process started in 2012 and up to 16,906.5ha (1.9%) of the 865,700ha of the degraded wetlands have been restored.

In the last financial year still, over 5,000 pillars were procured and delivered across the country to the various district local governments to mark specific wetlands earmarked for demarcation during the Financial Year," Oloya says.

A cumulative total of 480.39km of wetland boundary were demarcated across the country, up from 226.6km, representing 96.1% of the planned target of 500km.

This success, Oloya says, is attributed to close involvement of the regional technical support unit and the district local government to undertake demarcation process as well as direct release of funds to the regions and local governments to undertake the tasks.

The ministry also coded and demarcated the eight drainage basins around the country. Coding is assigning a wetland a unique identifier for instance a number followed by names.

So far, over five technical reports out of the eight have been compiled for Lake Victoria, Lake Edward, Lake Kyoga, Lake Albert and Kidepo basins showing wetland codes, names, area, boundary and location to support the gazettement process. The ministry is also supporting community livelihoods dependent on wetland resources.

The GCF project has for example constructed two water retention facilities at Nyaruzinga wetland in Bushenyi district and KandekyeRuhorobero wetland in Sheema district with a capacity of 20 and 15 million liters of water respectively.

"The facilities are aimed at enhancing wetland recovery while supplying clean and safe water for mini-irrigation of the communities' crop adjacent to the wetland covering an area of 40acres," Oloya explains.

CAPACITY BUILDING AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Over 45 district officers were trained in data generation and management and a strategy for mitigating gender-based violence during the implementation of GCF project. Still, 74 local governments from eastern and southwestern Uganda and wetland management department officers were trained in the application of open data kit for capturing wetland data using smartphones, to improve compliance and restoration monitoring and inventory.

"In addition, 25 officers from districts, Directorate of Environment Affairs, Water Resources Management, Uganda National Meteorelogical Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries and the United Nations Development Programme were trained in advanced geographical information system and remote sensing skills and over 100 LGs staff and 843 wetland users were trained on the wise use of wetland resources focusing on fish farming, wetland edge gardening, among others," Oloya says.