By: Kato Paul
Worth Noting:
- In addition to that the delay by UWA to compensate the affected persons and the oil developments and other related activities taking place in the critical ecosystems such as the oil roads in the Murchison National park have also contributed destruction of the animal habitats and the migration of the wild animals from their habitants to people’s family to fight for food and space for settlements.
- The increased migration of the wild animals especially the chimpanzees and they have put a big threat to human life especially the young children who are between 3-10 years and the destruction of people’s food. This has resulted to the death of 10 children in Kagadi district and many left with the serious injuries in one district only plus the competition for settlements.
Last week the media reported about the serious human-animal conflicts in Muhorro town council in the cells of Nyamiti, Igulika and Karuswiga in Kagadi district. This is because of the local communities encroaching their habitants.
Recently the same scenarios of human-chimpanzee conflicts happened in Hoima and Kikuube districts in the villages of Kyabigambire, Muteme, Mparangasi and Bugoma Host Communities among others.
It is noted that the human- chimpanzee conflicts is increasing in the country because most of the biggest critical eco-system like Zoka and Bugoma forest have been massively destroyed. For instance the Bugoma central forest reserve with the population of 600 chimpanzees is under a big threat by Hoima Sugar Limited and the local communities.
Most of the critical eco-systems across the country have been cleared by the local people, investors and rich business men carrying out human activities like agriculture, industrialization, settlement, timber logging and charcoal burning and others.
In addition to that the delay by UWA to compensate the affected persons and the oil developments and other related activities taking place in the critical ecosystems such as the oil roads in the Murchison National park have also contributed destruction of the animal habitats and the migration of the wild animals from their habitants to people’s family to fight for food and space for settlements.
The increased migration of the wild animals especially the chimpanzees and they have put a big threat to human life especially the young children who are between 3-10 years and the destruction of people’s food. This has resulted to the death of 10 children in Kagadi district and many left with the serious injuries in one district only plus the competition for settlements.
The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) needs to sensitize the public about the importances of the wild animals on the environment, economy and the people’s livelihoods.
The public should know that tourism sector only contributes both direct and indirect to the country for instance it contributes 7.7% of the GDP to the country and employs 667,600 people of the Ugandan’s population in the Travel and Tourism industry.
The Uganda wild life Authority (UWA) plus the government needs to sensitize the public about the importance of the critical biodiversity’s to the country. I released that people don’t know the importance’s of the wild life on their economy and the livelihoods after seeing some of the residents from kagadi saying that the chimpanzees should be taken away from their villages because they contribute nothing to them.
Therefore I call on the government of Uganda ,National Environment Management Authority(NEMA) , National Forestry Authority(NFA) and Uganda wildlife Authority(UWA) to sensitize the public on the results of spoiling the habitants of animals, importance’s of the wildlife on the economy and people’s livelihoods and strengthen the old environmental laws and operationalize the new environmental in order to stop the encroachers from entering in the habitants of the wild animals.
Kato Paul- Research Associate at Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIGO)
Katop.adyeeri@gmail.com.