Wetlands in Uganda are slowly disappearing at a fast rate exposing the country to the effects of Climate Change.
In 2010 a World Bank Development Report on development and Climate Change showed that one of the major reasons for Change is the significant loss of green lands.
Lubigi is a wetland on the northern and Western outskirts of Kampala the capital of Uganda. It is an irregular semi-circle around the city of Kampala and starting around Kisaasi to the North, stretching Westwards through Bwaise and Kawaala, and then to Busega. The swamp also has feeder arms that stretch along Kampala Mityana Road towards Kyengera.
The Wetland is a water catchment area serving the capital Kampala and the surrounding areas. Rain water from the Northern and Western suburbs of the city drains. It also supports unique wild life including different species of birds and the predominant flora of papyrus grass.
For the recent years, this wetland has become an encroachment site for humans. Lubigi Wetland controls the floods in and around the surrounding districts of Wakiso, around Kampala and Mpigi.
In 2016, National Environmental Management Authority ( NEMA ) officials took down gardens of several cash and food crops such as potatoes, maize, cassava, sugarcane among others inorder to protect the wetland.
In 2018, government issued a 21- day ultimatum to residents of 11 villages that had encroached on Lubigi Wetland. The Lubigi swamp is opposite National Water and Sewage Cooperation treatment plant and measures an area more than that of a football pitch.
After all these years of NEMA and government coming to Lubigi swamp’s rescue, I visited the same area but to my surprise the situation is now worse than before. The green cover and wetland has been destructed by different human activities.
The papyrus in Lubigi Wetland has been under severe pressure from encroachment and it has become a destruction means for cattle corridor districts of areas around since they don’t have water thus resorting to getting it from the wetland.
The 2019 UN Report shows that nature is being destroyed at a rate that is tens to hundreds of times higher than average over the past years. The Annual wetland destruction costs about shs. 2billion with records of the Uganda wetlands Atlas. This costs the livelihood of residents staying around areas of Bwaise, Kawempe, Busega, Kyengera among others due to floods during rainy seasons.
One of the objectives of the 1995 wetland policy of Uganda states the National Policy for conservation and Management of wetlands is improving on wetlands productivity.
The Lubigi wetland has been severely strained from encroachment and other activities and they include land filling to reclamation, human settlements, harvesting of Cyprus papyrus and other plants, disposal of wastewater into the wetland, draining away of water for agriculture, livestock, farming, clay and sand extraction, brick-making and solid disposal along industrial effluent discharges thus all this polluting the Lubigi wetland.
The wetland is greatly polluted by water wastes from industries for example the Mandela Millers Ltd Kampala, Uganda, East Africa manufacturing wheat and corn flour just next to Lubigi Wetland, upstream Nsooba – Lubigi storm water drainage channel and Lubigi Sewage Treatment plant. The waste products from industries are a threat to water, air and land since most of the products are not treated before releasing them. This affects both land, ecosystem and crops grown on this wetland.
Lubigi wetland has been greatly affected by degradation including the Government of Uganda that has constructed three major projects on the wetland that is say, The Kampala Northern Bypass Highway opened in 2009, The high tension electric cables carrying power from the Kawanda substation to Mutundwe substation, The National Water and Sewage Cooperation has constructed a sewage treatment plant in the middle of the wetland all these pass through the Lubigi wetland which is a threat to the wetland.
Most of the wetland have been exposed to all these challenges because of the National resource department has alor of corruption, poverty and Political interference thus granting permission of misusing wetlands to companies, organizations and individuals.
The Ministry of Water and Environment lacks enough money to gazette all the wetlands which exposes them like Lubigi wetland encroachment. “Section 36 of the National Environment Act provides for protection of wetlands and prohibits any person from reclaiming, demolishing, erecting any structure that is fixed on, in, under and above any wetland.
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