The Gweri County Member of Parliament Tom Julius Ekudo has asked the government to find better alternatives for rice growers before pushing the farmers out of the wetlands.
Ekudo who made the remarks during the National Wetland day’s celebration in Gweri Sub County in Soroti District said, wetlands have been the main source of livelihood for people over the years.
Ekudo argues that the people being pushed out of wetlands do not have any other piece of land for rice cultivation once they are ejected.
Ekudo added that growing rice in the wetlands has been the only source of livelihood for communities within the region and that forcing them out of tantamount to subjecting them to abject poverty. He wants the government to ensure that locals are not evicted from the wetlands before they are given alternatives for income generation.
“When you identify the problem you have to give a solution. So for the government to convince the locals to leave wetlands, we need to talk to them and provide them with an alternative means of survival. We need to get mechanisms and alternatives before sending our people out of wetlands,” Ekudo said.
He also called on the government to reintroduce the cultivation of upland rice so that the people can get out of swamps.
Albert Okello, a farmer from Gweri also supported the MPs request while calling on President Yoweri Museveni to find an alternative for the rice farmers in the district before evicting them from wetlands.
He specifically asked the president to first educate them on how best they can use the wetland and also avail fish ponds and irrigation schemes for the farmers.
Government has been embroiled in a row with rice growers over the destruction of wetlands. At the epitome of the disagreement, President Yoweri Museveni directed in 2019 that all the people on wetlands, shorelines, river banks and government forests should be evicted.
Soroti RDC Salim Komakech who represented Minister for Water and Environment Beatrice Anywar Atim said that Ugandans have knowingly or unknowingly waged war on wetlands, clearing them for settlement, business, and other socio-economic activities.
He said that wetland cover in Uganda has reduced from 15% in 1994 to 8% as of 2022 and Ugandans are blamed for insensitivity in cutting down trees for construction materials, firewood, and charcoal, which has resulted in related consequences of forest cover reduction.
He has called upon Uganda to rally behind the cause of ending wetland degradation in order to preserve Uganda’s ecosystems