NAMISINDWA – “They slaughtered an animal, skinned it and placed it on a stick at the entrance to Uganda Wildlife Authority Camp.
“Then they covered the entire ground with blood such that anybody would get scared.”
“And sometime back, the encroachers rolled stones down the hills to Mukoto UWA Camp in Namisindwa district and armed with spears, machetes and stones, the encroachers attacked the rangers, leading to a fight that left two rangers killed and several others injured”
“This is what the encroachers have been doing to scare UWA from evicting them from the park, from poaching animals, grazing and farming inside the park. And this practice of witchcraft increases when we intensify operations to forcefully rid the park of encroachers,” said Mr Fred Kizza, the Mt Elgon conservation area manager.
UWA Records indicate that out of about 3,000 hectares of the park land encroached on in Mt Elgon; UWA has recovered about 2,058 hectares. “This is a positive sign that the UWA may eventually win this war on encroachment,” says Mr Kizza.
However, this Mt Elgon conservation battle is coming at a cost. Mr Kizza says Mt Elgon conservation has pitted them against residents who use machetes, knives and spears to attack UWA rangers.
According to Mr Kizza the communities around Mt Elgon park are very harsh; they have killed, injured and maimed permanently many UWA rangers who are on the mission to conserve; one of their mandates.
UWA, the institution mandated to oversee wildlife management in Uganda has been having a lot of challenges with the communities living near Mt Elgon national park due to lack of clear boundary demarcation and failure by the Park neighbouring communities to understand the importance of conservation.
The tensions between fighters from the communities surrounding the park and UWA rangers have heightened to high degrees putting the lives of the rangers in a precarious position
These battles – over park land, park resources and ownership of the parkland – have seen several communities living around the park fighting against anybody in UWA uniform and anybody they suspect to be an ally to UWA.
Today for game rangers at Mt Elgon, conserving and protecting wildlife has become a life-threatening mission since poaching, timber thieving and encroachment have become the fastest growing crimes in the national parks in Uganda.
Many rangers in Mt Elgon national park face the threat of death daily in the line of duty, from communities living around the park and even from the wild animals they are meant to protect.
Efforts by UWA to educate the frontline communities on the role of community conservation have landed on deaf ears as the communities insist on tilling the land in Mt Elgon conservation without conserving
Mr Richard Matanda, warden in charge of Bokora-Matheniko Game reserve under Mt Elgon says communities are the true owners of nature and play a fundamental role in the conservation of biological diversity and the protection of forests and other natural resources; their traditional knowledge on climate variability can also enrich substantively scientific knowledge and adaptation activities of others.
He revealed that the frontline communities/encroachers have instead damaged the environment and continue doing so without reason and adds that like UWA anybody who advises them on the importance of conserving the Park for future generations is an enemy.
He said even their own environment in the communities is not conserved, trees have been cut, vegetation cover is grazed, the land is bare, even wetlands are all gone.
Mr Matanda said he has reports to the effect that people have moved up the Mukoto, Sono, Tsekululu, and Namisindwa, Bukokho and Bumbo ridge while in Sebei the encroachers have cleared land up the hills near Mt Elgon gorge up to the bamboo zone in the park.
He said a bird’s-eye view of what is left of the Mt Elgon forest in Kween district looks like baldheads, standing one after another, only comforted with thin patches of hair lining around them to cover the shame of their destruction.
A visit at these slopes of Mt Elgon in Sebei sub-region reveals an open area with little regeneration; grazing on either side of the forest edge in combination with tree-cutting for firewood, farming and settlement appear the main forces eroding the forest edge and keeping these areas open.
Scientists have indicated that because of massive encroachment, Mt. Elgon as a water catchment area is facing depletion at a very high rate, the soils are getting lose with cracks across the mountain and anytime there will be Mudslides.
Dr Mary Gorretti Kitutu, the former NEMA’s environment information systems specialist, said due to increasing population, people have encroached on the forest cover of the mountain for survival with poor farming methods, poor conservation methods that have damaged the soil cover.
“We must save nature, we must conserve our environment and if we don’t, it will be disastrous to us,” says Dr Mary Goretti Kitutu, now minister in charge of Karamoja affairs.
But the encroachers led by Pastor Absolomi Psikwi and elder, Mr Simon Nangumba from Mukoto, are defiant. We are not the cause of degradation at Mt Elgon, the bible says in the end times there will be widespread drought, diseases etc. Is our area the only one in the whole world with degradation, Government should stop deceiving us,” said Pastor Psikwi, a Kalenjin who claims his grant parents came to Bumbo in Mukoto in 1922.
But UWA insists that community-based conservation is the future of biodiversity protection with the best impact over the long term, it is flexible enough to be used in communities all around the Mt Elgon, it is low-cost, and it is empowering to local people.
Mr Kizza says the communities around the Park should conserve in order to repair some of the damage done and maintain the environment for future generations, maintain species diversity for our benefit, that of wildlife and provide opportunities for education.
He explained that wildlife conservation doesn’t stop with patrolling! Like all forms of conservation work, protecting wildlife and natural places ultimately comes down to people and it is about building a future where people live in harmony and balance with nature.
“Wildlife conservation doesn’t stop with patrolling! Like all forms of conservation work, protecting wildlife and natural places ultimately comes down to people and it’s about building a future where people live in harmony and balance with nature,” said Mr Kizza.
According to Ms Sarah Bisikwa, a senior natural resources officer [Manafwa district] the encroachment and farming in the park has caused severe environmental degradation and affected the livelihoods of communities in Mt Elgon and killed the habitat for all living organisms.
A habitat is an environment where an organism lives throughout the year or for shorter periods of time to find a mate. The habitat contains all an animal needs to survive such as food and shelter – forests, grasslands, deserts, mountains, polar-regions and aquatic habitat.
A habitat is important because a species or a group of organisms including animals, birds, and plants depend on their habitat for their air, food, water, shelter, and all other essential requirements for their survival. Hence, organisms slowly adapt to their habitats to survive.
“Many trees have died, and animals and other ground organisms have lost their habitat – some species might disappear from the area entirely. This could also be a disaster to man because insects like bees that pollinate will die and there will be no food for us,” said Ms Bisikwa.
According to Ms Bisikwa, human health, local and global economies, and sustainable food and water supplies all depend on state-of-the-art knowledge about insects, their integral roles in ecosystems, and their effective management.
“Insects outnumber all other life forms combined in soils and many more species of insects are beneficial, helping to control pests, recycle nutrients, and pollinate crops so when bushes/vegetation are destroyed and the soils will remain unproductive,” said Ms Bisikwa
Mr Bob Natifu, the acting Commissioner, Minister of Water and Environment agrees that failure to conserve the environment and deforestation of Mt Elgon areas displaces wildlife species, putting them in closer proximity with each other and to humans and that this increases human exposure to new infectious diseases and makes humans more vulnerable to pandemics like the deadly COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg etc
He added that humans have impacted the Mt Elgon physical environment by overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation and that these changes have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water.
Livelihoods affected
According to the Mt Elgon Conservation Area Manager, Mr Kizza, whereas government allowed the encroachers to stay within the 1993 park boundary to enable them farm, they have gone beyond this area and opened up park land for settlement and cultivation.
Reports from the area indicate that the operations to evict locals from the park have impacted on livelihoods. “Many of us are homeless. We have become squatters on our own cradle land. We have gone to court but apart from injunctions, there seems to be no hope. Government should come to our rescue, compensate us and resettle us,” said Ms Anna Namanzeyi, 87, in Bumbo.
However, Mr Kizza says “On Wednesdays and Fridays, we allow people to enter the park harvest mushrooms, bamboos, vegetables, fire wood and any other thing they want, this means they are allowed to harvest.
He added that “And besides, there is revenue sharing where we give them 20% of money collected from the Park which is spent on household and community projects that meet two basic criteria: they must contribute to reducing human-wildlife conflict, or they must contribute to improving the livelihoods of households in frontline villages.
He said an important aspect of the UWA’s mandate is visiting local communities and engaging people with the array of biodiversity nearby and that the significance of conservation work is emphasised as well as how different activities in the protected areas can impact the host communities, both in the short and long term.
Why the worry?
Mr Frank Muramuzi, the executive director of National Association of Professional Environmentalists [NAPE] says failure to conserve has far-reaching effects, including disruption of ecosystem balance, loss of pasture for animals, pollution of the atmosphere and loss of scenic beauty.
He added that it also destroys soil biological, physical and chemical properties, hence contributing to environmental degradation, food insecurity and poverty in the region.
Mr Charles Wakube, the Mbale district environment officer says research done on Ethno-botanical studies done on indigenous medicinal plants at Mt Elgon done in Kenya side of Mt Elgon says that ethno-medicinal plant species which people rely on to manage human ailments are gone.
According to scientists failure to conserve nature for generations at Mt Elgon will directly affect the attainment of three Sustainable Development Goals: SDG1 (no poverty) SDG2 (zero hunger) and SDG3 (good health and well-being).
Why Conserve?
According to UWA, the big reason for conservation work is the impact that it has on human health and both in preventing the emergence of new diseases, and production of medicines that we rely upon.
Mr Kizza says, “We cannot be healthy in an unhealthy environment. It is in our own best interests to preserve the natural environment as much as we can. The exploitation of the natural environment threatens our capacity to provide food and water for the people on earth.
And preserving vegetation and forests, they act as catchment areas for rivers and lakes and also participate in the rain-making process, this means they are key to us and also support the rain-fed agriculture in a country like Uganda.
Mr Charles Wakube, the Mbale district environment officer says that it is also true that vegetations in areas like Mt Elgon, Kidepo, Pien-UPE, Bokora-Matheniko game reserves and forests also provide habitats for wildlife and tourism and preserving them is key foreign exchange earnings from tourists.
“The failure to make all efforts to conserve our nature means we are destroying our economy and undermining our own survival,” said Mr Charles Wakube, the Mbale district senior Environment officer.
Solutions
According to Mr Wakube when they talk about conserving nature, it means caring about our future because nature provides the essential resources for our survival and enjoyment
He said we must reduce our ecological footprint and that this means reducing our ecological footprint, placing less demand on nature, reduce, reuse and recycle
He added further that to conserve nature means to protect, preserve and restore biodiversity therefore we ought to stop killing/harming wildlife, plant native wildflowers, fruit trees, and pollinator-friendly plants in your garden and make compost to improve soil quality and to help insects
Mr Wakube said human also need to have time to connecting with nature, set aside time to interact with the natural environment. Here are some ways that you can do this: play outside and spend more time in nature and organize trips to explore the national parks/nature reserves close to you.
