Africa-Press – Uganda. Environmentalists have raised the red flag over the irresponsible destruction of wetlands in Uganda.
The experts says the country is suffering from effects of climate change because of human activities on protected ecosystems such as wetlands, water and other resources.
“In Lira District, we don’t have enough water. These are effects of climate change. The climate change created by we the people,” Mr Richard Musota, the manager of Upper Nile Water Management Zone at the ministry of Water and Environment, said on Wednesday .
“The way we behave is defining how we are going to live, the cost of living and what we must do to live for the future,” Mr Musota added.
Lira was hit by water scarcity in May last year after the surrounding water bodies flooded and destroyed Kachung Water Treatment Plant in Agwata Town Council, Dokolo District.The district has for the last two months been facing water scarcity because machines at Kachung can no longer pump water. The facility is used by National Water and Sewerage Corporation to supply water to more than 200,000 people in Lira City and other urban centres.Mr Musota said climate change is a human-created phenomenon.
“We are the problem. Out of development, we compromised with nature and our environment,” the environmental experts said.
The Ministry of Water and Environment indicates that most of the food in Uganda is grown close or within the wetlands. Ms Musota said thousands of people are encroaching on wetlands and forest reserves because they are looking for fertile soil.
Ms Getrude Ogwok of International Union of Conservation of Nature, said many world countries have destroyed their environment in the name of industrialisation, a move Uganda should carefully embrace.
“Well, ‘they’ have a good life now but ‘they’ are paying us money so that ‘they’ have a nature’s walk in Africa,” she said.
Mr Morris Chris Ongom, the president of Lira City Development Forum, said they will agitate for proper management of environmental discharge in Lira City.
