Africa-Press – Uganda. Residents of Buliisa District could suffer food shortage as elephants from Murchison Falls National Park continue to invade villages and destroy gardens. Elephants have since July destroyed acres of crops.
Mr Godfrey Busingi, a cassava farmer in Mubbaku Village, Mubbaku Parish in Ngwedo Sub-county, narrated to the Daily Monitor that he lost seven acres of cassava.
“Given the current cassava price, I would have earned about Shs28 million this season because I sell each acre of cassava at Shs4 million but this will not be possible,” Mr Busingi said.
Farmers are currently harvesting immature cassava.
“We are gathering evidence, taking pictures and getting letters from veterinary officers and we want to write to Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) so that we are compensated,” he said.
Buliisa borders Lake Albert, Murchison Falls National Park and Budongo Forest.
Mr Muhammad Warom, a resident of Bugana-Kichoke village, said he spends sleepless nights guarding his garden.
“We have been overwhelmed by roaming elephants and they have impoverished us. We have resorted to cutting trees for charcoal and yet we have been growing our own food,” he said.
Mr Warom said he has no food to feed his family members after his crops such as maize, jackfruits, paw paws were destroyed.
“Our children are now coming back from school to find no food,” he added.
The most affected villages include Bugana-Kichoke, Waiga, Kabbolwa, Kijangi, Bberoya, Nyamiteete, Buribo, Kataleeba, in Buliisa Sub-county and areas of Mubbaku, Ajigo, Mvule Nnunda, Mvule 1, Kamandindi, and Khartoum in Ngwedo Sub-county.
Mr David Katusabe, the Buganda-Kichoke village chairperson, said: “We are in fear of an outbreak of hunger soon because many acres of crops have been destroyed.”
Ngwedo Sub-county chairperson Kennedy Oringi said they have experienced the worst raid this year, adding that the elephants come in groups of 10 to30.
He asked UWA to fence off the national park.
“We always ask rangers to come and remove elephants from people’s gardens but it seems that these rangers have failed,” he said.
The community conservation warden of Murchison Falls National Park, Mr Wilson Kagoro, reveals that the continued raid of wild animals on people’s gardens is due to limited man power to effectively manage the parks’ boundaries.
“The park is big and it longer has boundaries and we don’t have staff everywhere,” he said.
“Whenever these incidents happen, we expect the community to report to us so that we are able to respond and chase these animals away and if they delay, then it’s them to blame not us,” he added.
Mr Kagoro said they plan to erect electric fences to mitigate human-wildlife conflict.
He said they plan for 20kms of electric fence from the Nile to Waiga River, 20km fence in Masindi, Kiryandongo 30km, Nwoya 31km.
He added that in Kiryandongo and Nwoya, Uganda Wildlife Authority dug 70km of trenches to curtail invasion.
He revealed that Murchison Falls National Park has 2,800 elephants.
Mr Kagoro asked residents to carry out acattributes the cause of continued raid of people’s garden by elephant to human activities that are too close to the park boundaries and increase in number of elephants.
“We have a number of people’s coming up with many activities near the park especially in Buliisa and where used not to be garden there are garden without the barrier, animals come to change the diet especially when people grow crops that are palatable to them”.
He revealed that currently Murchison Falls National Park has 2800 elephants compared to 90s when the number was low.
Laws
The Uganda Wildlife Act 2019 provides for compensation for loss occasioned by animals escaping from wildlife-protected areas.
According to the Act, compensation is given to a person who suffers bodily injury or is killed or suffers damage to his or her property by wild animals.
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