GULU– Residents who surround Murchison Falls National Game Park in Nwoya District are demanding special consideration for recruitment into the Uganda Wildlife Authority [ UWA ] as game rangers.
This they say will help boost the sensitization of other members of the community against poaching, besides improving the souring wildlife-human conflict, which has seen hundreds of acres of food and cash crops destroyed, scores of people killed by both wild animals and game rangers.
In the recent recruitment exercise for Acholi Sub-region which happened at Kaunda Grounds in Gulu City, Stephen Opiyo, a resident in Purongo Sub County said many interested candidates failed to make it to the recruitment center due to the financial implications given the rising cost of transport fares.
Opiyo said that recruiting them, who have lived with the repercussions of the human-wildlife conflict to serve as rangers given the geographical understanding of the areas will give them an upper chance in working towards solving the dreadful conflict.
Susan Arach, a resident of Ceke village in Lii Sub County said that apparently, most of the people who are serving in their area don’t speak or clearly understand the Acholi dialect which affects communications between them as the locals and the rangers.
Arach noted that vision of UWA, in the long-run, should be supporting the local community who live around the game parks by recruiting them to improve their livelihoods, fight to solve the human-wildlife conflict as well as the UWA-community relations.
“We have continued to suffer due to wild animals crossing into our land and destroying our crops. By recruiting our children to join and serve as rangers, it will not only improve our relations with UWA and the wild animals but also bring some financial benefit to the families of those recruited. We are not seeing how the local community members are benefiting directly from the presence of game parks around us,” Arach said.
Denis Ojok, who received scouting training from UWA to drive away elephants from the community said that having served for more than seven years, he hasn’t gotten any tangible benefit or reward from UWA apart from gumboots, and rain jackets which they normally use while on operation.
Ojok wants UWA to in the future recruitments consider some of them who already have basic knowledge in game ranging.
Tony Awany, the Nwoya County Member of Parliament in an exclusive interview with our reporter over the weekend said as Acholi Parliamentary Group [APG], they have petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, and the Executive Director UWA to revise the requirements of recruitment, especially for community members surrounding the game parks.
Awany said that he was perturbed that for one to be recruited as a game ranger, a credit in English Language is a must, which he said is unfortunate. He said an O’level certificate, regardless of the grades attained, should be the one considered as a whole, adding that somebody with an Olevel certificate is able to speak the English language.
“Given our background of war, not many of our children were that bright in class yet have the capacity to learn and be good rangers, why cut them off because they didn’t attain a specific credit in subjects taught in O and A` Levels.
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