Wetlands disappearing three times faster than before due to population growth

SOROTI– Wetlands, amongst the world’s most economically valuable ecosystems and essential regulators of the global climate, are disappearing three times faster than forests, experts have warned.

Wetlands include some of the most carbon-dense ecosystems in our planet, such as salt marshes, seagrass beds and mangroves.

Despite their essential role in global climate regulation, wetlands remain undervalued by policy and decision-makers in national plans. Approximately 35 percent of the world’s wetlands were lost between 1970 and 2015 and the loss rate is accelerating annually since 2000.

Losses have been driven by such as climate change, population increase, urbanisation, and changing consumption patterns that have all fueled changes to land and water use and to agriculture.

The world’s remaining wetlands are under threat due to water drainage, pollution, unsustainable use, invasive species, and disrupted flows from dams, and sediment dumping from deforestation encroachment by the ever-increasing population.

One of such wetlands is Angacibong wetland found along the border between Amuria and Katakwi in Teso sub-region with a population of over two (2) million people.

Herds of livestock arrive here in the morning and wander around the whole day before being driven home in the evening. Seemingly, they are left to roam the vast water banks without restriction.

” Homesteads have occupied pasturelands that our forefathers grazed animals on,” says Gabriel Obukui, a livestock farmer from Amuria district.

“Space now available is covered by food crops so we have to move cattle long distances to the swamps,” said Obukui.

According to Obukui, the wetland to is silting and drying up due to overgrazing, rice growing and bricklaying among other conditions.

Communal grazing water meadows, abnormal rice profits, and high demand for burnt brick have escalated human activity in low grounds near streams or rivers of Angacibong wetland.

Population growth is having a strain on natural resources. People’s numbers are increasing against inelastic and diminishing earth materials used to support life and meet people’s needs.

Uganda is set to conduct the National and Housing Census in less than five months. Experts have put a request to the government to avail them about sh140b to count humans and livestock.

The National and Housing Census is carried out every 10 years but Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has justified why it is embarking on the exercise two years earlier than scheduled. The Executive Director, Dr. Chris Ndatira Mukiza says the implementers of the National Development Plan (NDP) vitally need accurate figures to increase household income and improve quality of life.

The NDP is Uganda’s Vision 2040 medium-term strategic direction meant to transform Ugandan society from peasantry to a modern-prosperous country within 30 years. It’s an ambitious plan, which if it succeeds would see a big chunk of the Ugandan poor enter the money economy.

Suit to say, statistics are not entirely up-to-date but the ministry of finance, planning and economic development in 2021 reported that Covid-19 pandemic instead had reversed the trend. The report released in the first half of the year shows a rise in poverty rates from 18% to 28% before the disease outbreak.

“Increasing numbers of people are going hungry and the more the rains delay the more people invade the swamps to cultivate,” says Peter Okotel, a rice farmer in Teso. “Crop yield upland is no longer guaranteed due to escalating unpredictability of rainfall forcing farmers to wetlands.”

Uganda’s population remains ideal with both the government and the United Nations expecting it to exceed 50 million by the time enumerators are done based on current projection. Nonetheless, it’s associated with the world’s emerging challenges such as deforestation, land degradation, and water pollution among many destroying planet earth.

Species and habitats are disappearing owing to human activities. In other words, biodiversity loss has led to inconsistency in natural processes like pollination endangering bio networks or flora and fauna.

High poverty levels have not helped the situation with the exhausted soils producing low crop yields and chronic food shortages. The quest for virgin agricultural land has led to mass deforestation, degradation and pollution of water.

State regulation is ineffective with unsustainable practices widespread. The minister of state for Environment, Beatrice Anywar Atim admits policing is near impossible.

“The Environmental Protection Police Unit is still understaffed,” says Anywar. “We [Ministry of Water and Environment] have only 185 police personnel running around across the country.”

The unit was established in December 2011 to help the Ministry of Water and Environment enforce environmental laws and regulations. The officers are attached to the ministry headquarters, the National Environment Management Authority [NEMA], National Forest Authority (NFA) offices and major central forest reserves across the country.

Unluckily, some of these officers have been accused of corrupt tendencies and connivance with the offenders. The dishonest behavior has in addition undermined the government’s effort to build resilient communities and ecosystems through the restoration of wetlands and associated catchments.

Pressure on natural resources, however, is inevitable. Uganda’s current population growth rate is 3.32% with a fertility rate of 4.78 births per woman.

Specifically, the country registers 4, 656 births against 800 deaths daily adding more than one million people to the population every year. The marked figures appear healthy for development but trigger alarm bells from urban sprawl, high poverty, soil degradation, poor waste management, unemployment, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and overfishing among many emerging development challenges.

Former district chairperson, Ngora, Bernard Eumu has an insight into waste management in a recently published PhD thesis. The dissertation assesses the National Environmental Management Policy formulation and implementation mechanism in Eastern Uganda.

“About 25 percent of Uganda’s population or 12,084,000 people live in urban areas with 5.9% population growth rate,” says Eumu. “It’s twice the rural population growth rate and has seen waste generation per capita per day increase from 0.26kgs to 0.47kgs in urban areas.”

The annual waste quantity for Kampala city for example according to Eumu is now 481, 081 tons and imposes a big challenge to cities, municipalities and town councils. The authorities nationwide, he adds are grappling with the challenge of managing waste of about 5, 679, 479.53kgs (5, 679.5 tons) generated per day or 2, 073, 010.02 tons annually.

“Interventions should focus on Human capital development with more investment put towards waste disposal reduction and recycling,” says Eumu. “In addition, promote family planning services to reduce fertility levels.”

Decentralisation and rural service delivery have reduced rural-urban migration but have precipitated urban sprawl. Many people now move from high-density urban places to low-density rural areas leading to the establishment of many trading centres or small towns across the countryside.

Land has appreciated value and landowners are fragmenting it into plots for sale. In addition, the ills that come with urban sprawl including generation of unsustainable waste are taking a toll on natural resources.

The high demand for fast foods and packaging materials has created mass non-biodegradable waste. Non-biodegradable waste does not decompose when put in landfills instead it produces huge volumes of methane, which is one of the worst greenhouse gases.

Population growth problems are interlinked and one means all. The greenhouse gases for instance cause climate change arising from increased atmospheric temperatures due to harmful gases released by industries or fossil fuel burning.

Climate change itself has countless dangerous effects but apparent ones here are change in seasons, new disease outbreaks, recurrent flash floods incidences, and alterations in weather patterns. It goes along with all forms of pollution including water, air, and soil, noise, radioactive, light, and thermal.

Teso sub-region small, medium as well as large wetlands are not only being destroyed by rice growing and overgrazing but also overfishing. Apart from depleting fish stocks, the fishermen and women destroy the ecosystems causing imbalances such as the purification of waters.

Wetlands are a vital source of food, raw materials, genetic resources for medicines, and hydropower, and they play an important role in transport, tourism, and the cultural and spiritual well-being of people.

Given the importance of wetland, we need urgent collective action to reverse trends on wetland loss and degradation, and secure both the future of wetlands and our own at the same time.”

This story was produced with support from the National Population Council (NPC) in collaboration with the Population Reference Bureau (PRB).           

https://thecooperator.news/katakwi-rdc-directs-police-to-arrest-wetland-encroachers/           

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