NEMA halts issuance of permits in wetlands

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The National Environment Management Authority- NEMA has halted the issuance of all permits in wetlands across the country.

The NEMA Executive Director Dr. Tom Okurut notes that the decision is part of the temporary interventions to reduce the ever-rising cases of misuse and encroachment of wetlands and other sensitive areas in several parts of the country.

According to Dr Okurut, several people with permits have failed to adhere to the guidelines.

Okurut was on Wednesday speaking during the NRM Manifesto week.

He says that people who have defied the guidelines will have their permits revoked and told to vacate the premises.

According to Okurut, several developers have already been arrested for operating without permits from Mpigi, Kapeeka, Matugga and Entebbe.

David Kureeba, an environmentalist and programme coordinator in the National Association of Professional Environmentalists-NAPE welcomes the move. He says that wetlands should not be priority areas for developments.

The decision comes at a time when the ministry of water has ordered all local governments to ensure that people who are illegally operating in the wetlands vacate with immediate effect.

Since 2017, President Yoweri Museveni has been issuing several directives and pronouncements on encroachment on wetlands saying the act was putting the country on the risk of losing its water catchment resources and exposes the country to adverse effects of climate change.

Although the NRM manifesto target was to increase wetlands coverage from 10 percent to 12 percent by 2021, the coverage has stagnated to less than 8.9 percent.

State Minister for Environment Beatrice Anywar says the target has not been achieved because as the sector restores and improves on coverage, degradation on the hand has not stopped due to increasing pressure for human settlements, agriculture use and industrialization.

By 1994, Uganda had 15.6 percent of the land surface covered in permanent and seasonal wetlands but less than 8.4 percent are remaining following massive encroaching in the last 25 years. Statistics from the Environment Ministry show that Uganda continues to lose 2.5 percent of its wetlands every year. It is projected that by 2040 only 1.6 percent of the wetlands will be left if nothing is done.

According to the Uganda Wetlands Atlas, wetland destruction costs the country nearly 2 billion Shillings annually and contamination of water resources partly caused by the reduced buffering capacity of wetlands near open water bodies costs the country 38 billion shillings annually.

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