Uganda’s environment authority betraying the environment

By Eron Kiiza

I have fervently been critical of the decision by our National 

Environment Authority (NEMA) to approve the clearing of part of the Bugoma Forest reserve by Hoima Sugar Ltd, to replace it with a sugarcane plantation.

NEMA claims to have been informed by an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) carried out by Hoima Sugar Ltd on 6th July 2020 which itself was unlawfully, unethically and unscrupulously done, betraying the realities of how destructive the project is to Uganda’s environment and humanity at large.

An ESIA is a process by which a developer analyses the social, cultural and environmental implications of a proposed project to enable a regulator like NEMA to make informed decisions on whether to approve or reject the project.

Hoima Sugar Ltd’s ESIA was so depleted of facts and replete with cunning that the report was signed by only one man rather than a team as required by law and logic and the documenters of the assessment did not consult any of the stakeholders.

The most affected local government, Kikuube District, protested against NEMA with 31 strong objections but the institution in a comfy bed with Hoima Sugar Ltd ignored all the 31objections without a single reason.

The public institution charged with spreading environmental information suspiciously hid crucial information about Bugoma deforestation from the public including her social media and website until we The Environment Shield ran to both the High Court and the East African Court of Justice.

NEMA is sheepishly looking on as Hoima sugar Ltd disregards a plethora of legal imperatives, regulatory directives and basic logic in the destruction of the most biodiversity forest in the country located in the Albertine Rift Valley.

Hoima Sugar Ltd is connected to Uganda’s top military and political figures so much so that the forest is being cleared with the deforesters guarded by the military and police as NEMA turns a blind eye even when journalists trying to follow up the Bugoma deforestation get battered.

Nearly 6000 acres that have been part of Bugoma Forest Reserve since 1932 seducing multitudes of visitors to the pearl of Africa, earning us huge sums of revenue and foreign exchange, are now claimed as not part of the forest.

Replacing a forest with sugarcane will diminish Uganda’s capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change as has been documented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 9^th August 2021, emphasizing the anthropogenic nature of climate change caused by humans.

When development is sought to be achieved by attacking nature and assailing the tourism sector, it is called ecocide which is also suicidal because it is not only unsustainable but also triggers human-wildlife conflict.

It is happening in Bugoma forest landscape where wild animals are killing people who attack their habitat or as the animals roam the area that was once their home or as they are simply drawn by the sugarcanes that are replacing their natural vegetation home.

Equally flushed down the drain are the medicine, food, recreation, livelihood and many more that communities around Bugoma forest used to draw from it.

Hoima Sugar Ltd irrelevantly calls the project area a private forest ignoring the fact that forests, public or private, are environmental treasures whose deforestation harms the environment and human health and life across borders and generations.

Forests serve several functions including purifying the water we drink, the air we breathe, rainmaking, insulating humans from zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 and providing them with pollinators, food and medicine.

Forests host precious wildlife and irreplaceable biodiversity, beautiful to behold, attract tourists and help humans not only to battle climate change (mitigation) but also to cope with its effects (adaptation).

With forests, the soil quality and soil structure are maintained or enhanced. They break winds and floods insulating humans and life in forests from grisly disasters.

Humans, therefore, have a legal and moral duty to jealously defend forests because attacking nature is a suicidal invitation to catastrophic pollution and climate change.

Hoima sugar Ltd is substituting irreplaceable biodiversity in soil, species, fauna and flora, trees and forests with sugarcane, brick and motor.

Nothing is at stake like the ship we call Uganda as forests and other natural pieces of our environment sink into the sea of greedy politics so will our lives and our health. All life depends on nature. Let’s preserve our forests and environment.

Silence, as a few people spoil the lungs of the earth, is a rope around our necks.

Bugoma forest in the Albertine Rift Valley

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The write Kiiza Eron is the Chief Executive Officer at The Environment Shield, a Poet, author, human rights Lawyer and Manages Kiiza & Mugisha Advocates in Kampala Uganda.

The Environment Shield is a Ugandan civic organisation specialising in climate, natural resources and environmental justice; member of Namati, an international organisation in the advancement of legal empowerment; member of Network of Public Interest Lawyers in Uganda.

Twitter @theeyer0