What are left, in some instances, are small traces of flowing water surrounded by eucalyptus trees, food-crop gardens and traces of waning riparian wetlands. In some cases, the rivers and streams got extinct and small towns are thriving! The early morning fog is now a fact of history, rainy season’s can longer be traditionally predicted! What exactly happened? Are these symptoms of climate change and subsequent global warming? Unabated encroachment? Irresponsible land use? A curse? Saharization? Imposing impunity? Inefficient policy regimes and deficiency in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of good policies?
A recent study carried out and managed by the Advocates’ Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) and funded by the DFID, “Auditing the Effectiveness of Government in Protection and Restoration of Water Catchments System,” documents and reveals a deepening water crisis in Uganda. The study gives an explanation for prolonged droughts, acute water shortages and poor, erratic and intermittent rains. The study explains a nexus between land use, environmental degradation and the subsequent deepening water crisis. The ACODE study also observes that the rate at which these resources are encroached upon and consequently depleted is higher than the rate at which they are restored and, as a result, Uganda stands at the brink of an escalating environmental calamity.
The encroachment, drying up and depletion of R. Rwizi in Mbarara, R. Nyamwamba in Kasese, L. Kyoga and L. Victoria are glaring manifestations of a severe environmental breakdown and the inadequacy and non-functionality of policy regimes. They are also major causes of economic mayhem, poverty, conflicts, disease, drought and famine. The ACODE findings corroborate the Uganda Poverty Status Report (2005), which revealed that Uganda’s forest cover diminished from over 11m hectares in 1890 to the below par 3m hectares in 2005! At this geometric rate, in a few years Uganda will have no forests and subsequently no water. Under these circumstances, public water works like boreholes and protected springs have started to dry up.
The foregoing coins a testimony that environmental conservation today is no longer a question of beauty but a question of the economic survival of individual households and the nation at large. It also presents poverty as a cause and a consequence of environmental degradation, most especially when every wetland is encroached upon, when every swamp is drained, when top soils are eroded, when rivers dry up and lakes shrink.
The water table continues to go down and desertification has become a reality. This has eventually reduced and depleted the water yields that feed public water works like gravity water schemes, boreholes, shallow wells, and protected springs. In Katakwi, Mbarara, Ntungamo and Kasese over 50% of public water works are nonfunctional! The water granaries that once fed them have dried up! How much money did Uganda spend to install these public water works? Will Uganda achieve the ambitious 77% water coverage target laid down in the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) by 2015 when all its wet lands, forests, rivers, hills, lakes are rapidly getting depleted? If Uganda is to insulate itself from this calamity it has to deliberately replenish and restore its water catchments. This is why the proposed giving away of Mabira intrigues me.
The fate of Mabira and other catchments is currently a matter of life and death. Mabira is no longer just for scenic beauty and ecotourism, it is important for the survival of humanity. If we don’t have water, then we don’t have life. The debate and contestation over Mabira’s incarnation into a sugarcane shamba should not have even arisen. It is simply a taboo.
The state of the environment in Uganda’s pre-independence period was the most ideal in the whole of Africa. It was once described as the ‘Pearl of Africa’ and a fairly tale by Sir Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of United Kingdom and a Second World War hero. The country enjoyed an ideal weather pattern suitable for agricultural production which boosted the country’s economy in the immediate period after independence. Agriculture, thus, formed the country’s economic backbone until today.
Increases in the population, now at over 26 million people, have had very negative implications for land usage, mainly for agricultural and shelter purposes. The findings reveal that Uganda has a number of laws and policies geared towards conserving and protecting her environment. These include those from the Constitution, the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) and the National Environment Management Act (NEMA) among others. Despite this forest of policies, catchments continue to dwindle! This calls for the meticulous review and avid implementation of the existing environmental policy regime with the view of tailoring, customizing, localizing and genderizing it for practical purposes.
My friend Godber Tumushabe of ACODE argues that if the top leadership (read President Museveni) demonstrates the will for uncompromising implementation of environmental policies, this deepening water crisis can be averted. However, the President argues that he wants to create jobs for the citizenry and to boost Uganda’s economy. Can this be achieved, and is it sustainable?
Can Ugandans be guided to engage in profitable ventures that don’t compromise the wider environmental needs? ACODE, a body of policy gurus, should provide guidance and answer the seemingly legitimate concerns of the President. Finally, as I sign off, I say that you either can become environmentally friendly, or perish. That is what I wish for you and for myself. Over to you, fellow Ugandans.
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