KIKUUBE– More than 300 farmers who have encroached on the wetland banks of River Nguse in Kabwoya Sub-county in Kikuube district have been ordered to vacate before they face the wrath of the law.
A river bank is defined as a sloped side of a river acting as a barrier between the water and level ground to either side. Some river banks are in form of wetlands, buttressed with forest cover.
President Yoweri Museveni has always discouraged farmers from growing crops along the river banks, saying it causes silting of the river as the soils find their way to the streams, but also that such activities deplete wetlands that act as water reservoirs.
The order to vacate the river was made by Kikuube District Resident Commissioner [RDC] Amlan Tumusiime, who is also the head of security in the district, visited the river and found out that the encroachers had depleted the wetland neighboring the river.
Tumusiime was shocked that people from different districts such as Kagadi, Kakumiro, and Kikuube districts were carrying out different human activities in the prohibited area.
The encroachers do activities such as rice and maize growing, burning charcoal, and eucalyptus tree growing while others have fenced off part of the wetland to graze cattle and goats.
It was also established that some encroachers use boats to cross over the water so that they can cultivate and burn charcoal, without being detected.
Tumusiime expressed concern over the increasing degradation of what he called a sensitive ecological area in the district, saying people who are destroying the swamp along the river are unpatriotic.
“Nguse is one of the biggest rivers in Bunyoro with the capacity to mitigate weather conditions but it is now being degraded by human activities at an alarming rate,” he said
He, therefore, gave the encroachers an ultimatum of two months to voluntarily vacate the wetland supporting the river or else they will be forcefully evicted from the area.
The RDC noted that the security team will only allow the encroachers to harvest their rice and maize, adding that they will not allow the planting of new crops in the wetland.
Tumusiime warned leaders against politicizing evictions of encroachers from wetlands for their personal interest to ensure the smooth operation to flush out the encroachers from the wetland.
“The president recently order that all the encroachers on sensitive ecological areas should vacate and I am here to implement the president’s order. So I don’t expect anybody to interfere with this exercise,” Tumusiime explained
Karama Village Chairman Maxon Hakizimana said the eviction of the encroachers was long overdue adding that as local leaders, they tried to sensitize the encroachers to vacate the wetland but in vain.
He noted most of the encroachers are those who were evicted from Bugoma Central Forest Reserve adding that the decision to evict the encroachers will restore the depleted wetland.
Elizabeth Busiinge, a resident of Karama village attributed the encroachment on the river partly to people’s ignorance about the significant role that rivers and wetlands play in mitigating the impact of climate change, adding that rains patterns have changed due to the destruction of the environment.
We used to have rains for the first season in March, but this year we received the rains in April, and because of this we have not realized good harvests,” she said adding that there is a need for the authorities to scale up massive sensitization to save the biodiversity of the area.
Kikuube District Senior Environmental and Natural Resources Officer, Pauline Nambi said several wetlands in the district have been depleted. She said the district is partnering with different development partners such as Care International and the European Union to protect the district’s wetlands and rivers like Karuruma.
“We had also proposed River Nguse for restoration but unfortunately the funder found out that a bigger part of the river is in Kagadi district and instead decided to support us on the river Karuruma,” she said.
However, RDC Tumusiime said that R. Nguse area is going to be restored with funding from the World Bank under the Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project [DRDIP].
Last year President Museveni asked farmers to leave a 50-metre protection zone for rivers and 200 metres on lakes, as they do their farming near the water banks.
https://thecooperator.news/mbarara-rcc-evicts-locals-from-rucece-wetland/
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