By: Paul Kato
Worth Noting:
- The oil and gas taking place in the sensitive ecosystems are likely to led to destruction of the animal habitats, affect the breeding sites of the animal and this results to reduction of the numbers of the animals in the national parks, migration of the animals because of the noise caused by the 600 trucks that are expected to cross the park during the construction phase, the oil spills are also expected to disturb the vegetation in the national parks and fish life in various water bodies.
- All the three oil projects that is to say the Tilenga, East Africa Crude Oil pipeline and Kingfisher are going to pass the critical biodiversity’s such as Wetlands, water bodies, National parks and forest the most sources of the tourism sector in Uganda .
Last week the media reported about the petroleum Authority of Uganda promising the public that tourism recovery is on the back of oil and gas development. They said that oil and gas development will promote the tourism sector in the Albertin region and the districts affected EACOP because of the oil infrastructural development like oil roads connecting to the tourist attraction such as Murchison falls, Kibale Forest Reserve and others, the development of hotels in Hoima and Buliisa, Airport , recreation places as well as Telecom and other essential service like electricity and clean water supply to different parts of the Albertine and pipeline districts.
This is not true because most of the oil and gas developments are taking place in the sensitive ecosystem that contributes to tourism sector for instance the Albertine rift valley where the oil and gas activities are taking place, is a highly Eco sensitive area with 7 out of 15 of Uganda’s national parks, 8 protected forest reserves and several of African birds and reptile species which attract the biggest number of tourists in the country.
In addition to that the oil activities of the risk interfering with communities’ social, economic and environment livelihood as most of the activities are on the shores of Lake Albert where communities derive their livelihoods from. Also about 150 oil wells are located within the Murchison nation park which is one of the biggest and oldest parks in Uganda.
The oil and gas taking place in the sensitive ecosystems are likely to led to destruction of the animal habitats, affect the breeding sites of the animal and this results to reduction of the numbers of the animals in the national parks, migration of the animals because of the noise caused by the 600 trucks that are expected to cross the park during the construction phase, the oil spills are also expected to disturb the vegetation in the national parks and fish life in various water bodies.
All the three oil projects that is to say the Tilenga, East Africa Crude Oil pipeline and Kingfisher are going to pass the critical biodiversity’s such as Wetlands, water bodies, National parks and forest the most sources of the tourism sector in Uganda .
The oil and gas should not disturb the tourism sector because it contributes 7.7% to the GDP and provides 667800 employments to Ugandans both direct and indirect than oil and gas sector that is expected to create 160000 employments to Ugandans.
In my opinion the oil and gas developments are instead going too led to the decline of the tourism sector due to the oil activities that are taking place in sensitive biodiversity’s.
Therefore I call on the government of Uganda, oil and gas companies to respect the critical ecosystems that contributes much to tourism sector in the country.
John Kariuki