Environment in Bugiri has been grossly abused

The massive rice growing both as food and for business has caused big environmental fears among environmentalists, Police, and researchers in Bugiri district.

The trees that formed part of the rice gardens have over the years been cut down as people struggle to get land for growing rice, the land has been stripped of their vegetative cover for subsistence rice farming.

Rice growing has caused a lot of deforestation in the district, and what is sad is, when we try to stop the farmers they think that we want to give away their land to investors.

Whenever we go for operations, the community turns hostile to our officers and make our work hard" said Jeff Ssebuyungo, the Bugiri District Police Commander.

Ssebuyungo noted that there is a lot of ignorance in the community about environmental protection so people need to be sensitised on other alternative activities that they can engage other than clearing trees for rice and sugarcane.

The National Environmental Management Authority requires that farming should be restricted to no closer than 200 meters away from a wetland.

However, this law is consistently abused by people struggling for arable land to plant their crops. Farmers in Bugiri plant their rice in wetlands.

During the dialogue, Alex Busagwa, a senior environment officer in Namayimba, noted that there is a Gold mining company near the lake, and the chemical they use(mercury) ends up in the lake.

"We have raised this issue about water contamination of the mercury but there is nothing that is done, now there is an investor who wants to start up a water bottling factory near the lake, but we are worried that the water will be contaminated because we doubt whether they have the chemicals that can counter mercury," Busagwa said.

Speaking at the function, Prof Edward Bbaale, director of the Makerere University Environment for Development Initiative (EfD-Mak) Centre, said that if Uganda doesn't take immediate action on environment degradation, we shall soon experience a semi-desert because the rate at which the environment is being degraded is alarming.

"As researchers, it is our responsibility to train, engage, and empower grassroots people to act on climate change to achieve sustainable development.

When they have vast knowledge and experience about the environment, they can know the better methods for cooking instead of cutting trees," Prof Bbaale said.

Prof Bbaale appealed to the people growing rice to protect the environment by planting more trees in their land for the safety of themselves and the land.

"Many communities across the country have made a mistake and encroached on this natural resource (wetlands) in the guise of development, forgetting the negative effects they are causing to us, we have the laws protecting the environment but there is weak regulation. Regulation should be strengthened," Prof Bbaale noted.

Meanwhile, though environmentalists are fighting to save the natural resources, the farmers across the district claim that environmentalists wants to rob off their land and allocate it to the investors.

They claim that wetlands to them are the only source of survival they have and forcing them out would be another way of subjecting them to abject poverty.

"We have our friends who were forced to leave some wetlands, but up to now they have never been resettled, through wetlands, we educate our children, when these people are thinking of forcing out of the wetland, they should also think of ways how we will pay school fees for our children," said Steven Ssanya.

Katabazi Catherine, the secretary at the Natural resource Bugiri said that the public is willing to protect the environment but there is poor monitoring by the government.

"The district forestry officers have been giving out trees to fight deforestation but the challenge no one monitors to see whether the plants were planted, or they are growing, absence of a serious administration has made many continue cutting trees and plant rice in wetlands," Katabazi said.