The Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife, and Antiquities has earmarked more than 900 Million Shillings to compensate victims of human-wildlife conflict.
Tom Butime, the Tourism Minister told Parliament on Wednesday that the funds are a cumulative 2 percent of the total annual revenue being generated by the Uganda Wildlife Authority – UWA.
Butime was responding to a matter of national importance that was raised by Michael Wanyama, the Namayingo County South Member of Parliament two weeks ago relating to the destruction of crops in Namayingo district by wild animals which have threatened the food security of the affected communities.
The Uganda Wildlife (Compensation Scheme), and the Wildlife (Revenue Sharing) Regulations were gazetted on August 5th, 2022 to give force to the compensation scheme that provides for compensation claims for human death, injuries, or damage to property caused by a wild animal outside a protected area in line with Section 83 of the Uganda Wildlife Act, 2019.
Butime also said that the Wildlife Compensation Verification Committee responsible for authentication of the claims has been fully constituted and is set to commence work. He pointed out that human-wildlife conflict emanates from human encroachment on grazing land.
Agnes Taaka, the Bugiri District Woman Member of Parliament tasked the Minister to generate a list of persons affected by human-wildlife conflict, who will benefit from the compensation scheme for transparency and accountability.
Kanungu District Woman Member of Parliament, Patience Kinshaba raised concerns about elephants from Queen Elizabeth National Park that vandalize the food crops of locals neighboring the park boundary and asked the Ministry to expedite electric fencing.
Cecilia Ogwal, the Dokolo District Woman Member of Parliament urged the government to engage in high-level sensitization of communities on how to live alongside the wildlife in order to cultivate sustainable measures to prevent marauding problem animals from the park.
In February, the Ministry said it was soliciting 130 billion Shillings to implement human-wildlife conflict mitigation measures.
Vanice Mirembe, the Manager for Awareness and Human-Wildlife Conflicts at Uganda Wildlife Authority says that since 2018, UWA has been rolling out mitigation measures such as electric fencing, trench digging, and bee-keeping, rescue and translocation of animals as well as supporting livelihood projects which are curtailed by a funding deficit.
Wildlife generates over 120 billion Shillings for the tourism sector annually and employs over 600,000 Ugandans. But unfortunately, recurrent cases of conflicts around protected areas influence negative sentiments and retaliatory killings of wild animals.
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