Uganda is endowed with a number of natural resources ranging from minerals, oil reserves, water bodies, forests, wildlife, grasslands and agricultural land.

However environmental scientists at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) Makerere University contend that governance of these natural resources not managed well.

Against this background, a global network of environment experts, Environment for Development Initiative (EfD) with 15 centers in 15 countries across the world namely Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Sweden, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, USA and Vietnam have been since the year 2005 coordinating an initiative to protect the environment case by case and Country by country.

Uganda joined the network in 2018 with its center at Makerere University focusing on the degradation caused in Lake Victoria and finding solutions as to how such challenges can be curbed.

The global director of EfD Prof Khohilin Gunnar while giving the overview of the initiative in a meeting at Makerere University last week which he attended on Zoom, noted that at global level, his team has been mobilizing resources from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, (Sida) to give to the member countries in order to implement their activities.

In the official website of EfD, in a story title “”The agreement signed – Sida continues its cooperation for sustainability and Poverty alleviation in the Global South, it is stated that a 160,000,000 Swedish Krona  an equivalent of 19,452,656.00million US dollars to which Uganda is beneficiary.

Environment Center for Development Makerere University

The centre at Makerere University has been holding dialogues with different stakeholders addressing challenges concerning the different natural resources in the country with the recent being about the Lake Victoria crescent.

The Director of the centre Prof Edmond Bbaale while giving overview of the environmental challenges facing Lake Victoria pointed out that there has been rapid population growth, agricultural expansion, urbanization and industrialization around Lake Victoria catchment in all the East African countries which mounted extreme pressure on the lake and its basin’s ecosystems.

He cited Nakivubo drainage channel in Kampala which in most cases is piled with plastics which end directly into the lake posing a threat to aquatic life.

“”A research study conducted by Dr Baale and environmental scientists in Tanzania around the Lake Basin in Mwanza, showed that 20% of the Nile Perch examined showed presence of micro plastics in their stomachs. This is as a result of insufficient monitoring and weak enforcement of regulations on illegal- and over-fishing activities that have reduced fish stocks, which threaten crucial livelihoods and food security, “he noted.

It is his contention that water pollution from one point and non-point sources such as settlements, industries and agriculture have reduced water quality and affected aquatic life.

In some sub-catchments, the nitrogen load is as high as 1000kg/sqkm/year due to soil erosion.

As a result, the water hyacinth which affects fishing, water quality and transport has grown and spread rapidly.

In Uganda some sections of the Lake around Owen falls Dam were covered by Water hyacinth leading to power failure in the entire country.

“”The rising water levels caused dislodgement of papyrus mats from encroached shorelines which caused fleets of large floating islands progressing towards the Owen Falls dam. An incidence happened when one of the floating islands chocked the turbines at the dam causing a National power blackout on 14^th April 2020. This pile of load on the lake he said to be the major reason the lake burst its banks across all the countries that habour the water body,” he noted.

The Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) and its inhabitants are vulnerable to the increasing effects of climate shocks, which would likely exacerbate its environmental problems.

The basin has a history of floods and droughts, with short and long-term consequences for communities.

Such extreme events worsen environmental problems like land degradation and deteriorated water quality which affects fish stocks and aquatic biodiversity and this clearly shows that the lake is a climate-change impacted hotspot.

Solutions to the over fishing on Lake Victoria

Citing the Fisheries Management Plan 111 2016- 20202 by East African Community, Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization, Prof  Baale explained apparently there are regulations guiding the lake Victoria catchment regarding fisheries. Each member state implements its own regulations

”In Uganda one of the regulations is to deploy the environmental army to safe guard over fishing on the lake in Ugandan side. This is done in consultation with the National Environment Authority ((Nema), Environmental Police and Ministry of agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries among others,” he noted.

The Ministry of Agriculture in its 2020 policy brief signed  by Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja states that there a number of policies in place to regulate fishing on the lake, one of the 2017 National Fisheries and Aquaculture policy which is being enforced by environmental police in regulating aquaculture fishing.

Mr Simon Peter Okoth, Deputy Commandant Environmental Protector Police Unit who was present at the Dialogue noted that the responsibility of protecting the environment around Lake Victoria is for everybody including the residents who are polluting the lake.

According to him Police will only come in once all other avenues have failed. “Our duty is come and enforce law and order at the banks of the lake including over fishing on the lake. We are not supposed to use force and this has to be done through peaceful means. The communities mining sand at Kasenyi beach in Entebbe have been of help. Once we advise them to stop mining, they abide. They problem only comes when Companies that contract them become resistant, that is when we use force and evict such companies,”.

 Hydrology: The Case of floods on Lake Victoria

Giving the statistical details the Dr Baale noted that during the period in late January 2020, the effect of Lake Victoria bursting its banks started to be felt with several landing sites and settlements damaged by floods.

This left almost half a million people homeless and property worth billions of money had been lost in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Three possible Causes of Hydrology change

From August 2019 to June 2020, Lake Victoria basin experienced an intensive and prolonged rainfall season caused by the Indian Ocean Dipole (Indian Nino) attributed to climate change.

This caused a rise in water levels of major water bodies and floods in various parts within the basin.

The Lake Victoria water level rise started on 1^st October, 2019 and by 30^th April, 2020, it had reached a record 13.32m. It was a sudden rise of 1.32m attained in just 6 months. 

With the only outflows being evaporation and through River Nile at Jinja, Lake Victoria water carrying capacity of 2424km³ was tested to the limit, hence bursting of its banks.

Another reason is lack of Regional Consensus on a Well-coordinated Policy of regulating the lake inflow

The average depth is 40meters and the maximum depth is 80meters indicating the lake is very shallow with the surrounding areas contain 23 influential rivers.

The largest contributing river, the Kagera, originates from the southwestern part of the mountains of Rwanda and Burundi.

The Victoria Nile, the source of the White Nile, is the only outflow from Lake Victoria, situated in the city of Jinja and the flow at the outlet is controlled by the Nalubaale Dam complex.

According to the East African Council of Ministers in May 2020, Uganda has been violating Regional Treaties of maintaining natural outflow volumes and refused to implement a Policy ordered in 2012 by EAC member states.

One of the Lake Victoria Basin Commission Bills 2019 being violated by Uganda as stated by the East African Legislative Assembly in a meeting held in Nairobi in May 2020.

“” It States that the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) is considering the Lake Victoria Basin not to be degraded  Chapter Nineteen of the Treaty talks about the Establishment of the East African Community, management of its resources, and specifically establishment a body for the management of Lake Victoria, which is already in Existence but which Uganda violating,”

Whenever more water is needed to meet growing power demands, the Energy Company Eskom Uganda Ltd, its management allows more water to flow out of Lake Victoria.

This is when they want to generate more energy which requires more outflow of water into River Nile for pumping more energy.

The third reason being Lake Sedimentation arising due to Catchment degradation and Buffer zone encroachment.

There has been progressive degradation of the catchment area through farming, deforestation, overgrazing, settlements and other income generating activities resulting into soil erosion and high sediments transportation and other pollutants to the lake ecosystem.

Pollution

The principal of the college of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Prof Bernard Bashasha noted that in recent decades, some of the rivers and streams serving the lake and its near-shore areas have become particularly polluted by partially treated municipal waste, industrial effluents, urban surface contaminated runoff and raw sanitary effluent from settlements.

He contends that in Uganda, heavy metals originating from urban settlements and remote inland areas were identified.

Food processing, textile, leather, paper production, and metallurgy industries in Jinja as well as pollution from Murchison Bay were observed to affect the near shore areas of Uganda’s side of the Lake.

Livelihood; Socio-economic Impacts

This he said leads to reduced business activity along the landing sites, poverty and unemployment plus high crime risks.

Records from National Fisheries resources research institute (NaFFIRI) showed that the Nile perch harvest has declined from an average of 1.2 million tons between 1999 and 2007, to about 0.8 million in 2013.

This is the amount harvested as stated above by the records from NaFFRI

Measures

Mr Paul Kasenyi, one of the participants who attended the dialogue at Makerere University representing the Fishing Community at Kasenyi Entebbe, pointed out that the challenge of contaminating the lake with metals can be addressed by the communities.

“”At Kasenyi we have not recorded a lot metal contamination cases but usually when we site some, we collect those at the bank of the lake and disposed them off by burning them. Other communities across East Africa can do the same,”

These are too general suggestions. Let’s have specific solutions to this climate change problems affecting the lake. What should be done to reduce transmission of metals and contaminated urban surface runoff to the lake, he notes.

Mr Okoth suggested that “already efforts are underway in by Nema management and the Communities living around the lake, those depleting forests are being arrested and asked to replant more trees, those spilling oil in the lake too are hold responsible for their acts and the same applies to those polluting the lake with metals,”

This is said should be a continues process because people don’t listen

This he says calls for concerted effort by the industries, scientists, policy makers among others in handling the challenge.