Inside Kampala’s vanishing wetlands and green spaces

Lubigi is hardly an outlier. Wetlands in Nakivubo and Kinawataka have been whittled down by encroachments occasioned by investors and human settlements. Today, Uganda continually pays a high price because of the encroachments. Flash-floods continue to turn Kampala’s thoroughfares into death-traps. With the drastic effects of climate change, it will take a number of years and large sums of money to fix the city’s potholes and red-rutted paths in the outskirts of Kampala metropolitan city.

A 2020 research paper titled “The cost of congestion in Kampala, Uganda” by the International Growth Centre, shows about $1.5m (Shs5.6b) is lost each day as a result of traffic congestion. This means $547.5m (Shs2 trillion) is lost to traffic gridlocks in the capital every year.

Cost of destruction

The other direct cost linked to wetland destruction is in regard to road maintenance in the city, which is among the highest in the world. For instance, the recently World Bank-funded Lukuli Road—whose 7.71km stretch across Makindye Division—cost Shs70.5b. That’s an average cost of Shs9.1b per kilometre.

Kulambiro Ring road/Najjera link and Nakawa Ntinda and Acacia Avenue construction measured 9.77km in length. It was built at a cost of Shs90.4b, with each kilometre costing Shs9.3b. Kabuusu-Bunamwaya-Lweza, an 8.06km road, cost Shs93.7b or Shs11.6b for each kilometre.

Further, the ecologically-destructive development model adopted in the city that comes at the expense of green spaces and vital ecosystems that serve as natural mechanisms of flood control, water filtration and drainage have health consequences for city dwellers such as increased vulnerability to waterborne diseases, especially in slums where nearly 50 percent of Kampala residents reside.

Since Kampala is the economic hub of the country, it has come in the eye of the storm of rural-urban migration. Its population has swelled from 1.18 million people in 2000 to five million in 2020.

“About 67 percent of Uganda’s GDP is here in Kampala, and because most of the wealth is here, there has been a pull factor,” Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, the executive director of the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode), revealed, adding, “It has caused pressure for housing. [Since] people have no housing, [they] fill up the wetlands and build.”

Prioritising development

In keeping with the government’s commitment to a neo-liberal policy that prioritises development driven by private and largely foreign capital, land in the capital was acquired in a wetland to build Forest Mall. This followed similar developments such as Garden City, which encroaches on the Kitante Wetland; Kinawataka wetland, giving way to a car bond near Kyambogo; and Crest Foam reclaiming a swamp to aid its expansion.

“The Garden City area was […] supposed to be part of the urban environment protected area, but we are finishing it up by building shops and buildings,” said then Lubaga South lawmaker, John Ken Lukyamuzi, during a plenary session of the Sixth Parliament, adding, “The rains during El Nino could be controlled if we had rich vegetation in terms of afforestation.”

Bukoto Health Centre III serves communities from as far as Kiwatule and Kyanja. It has continued to grapple with flooding this rainy season. Previously, the health centre has lost drugs in the stores as a result of flooding.

“Even now when there is a downpour, our health centre floods. It has flooded at least four times,” Ben Mwanje, the LC1 chairman of Butukirwa, told this publication, adding that “the drugs in the store got damaged.”

Victor Nahabwe, a senior manager of environment enforcement and field operations at the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), said “the biggest threat to wetlands is general wetland encroachment by mostly the rich.”

Despite a 1998 amendment to Section 44 of the Land Act, stipulating that the government or a local government shall not lease out or otherwise alienate any natural resource, including wetlands, land titles continue to be issued for property in wetlands. Per the Uganda Wetland Atlas Volume One, each year, 600 hectares or 1,483 acres of wetland are reclaimed in this manner.

Lip service

Since 1995, land titles have been issued for at least 782 plots wholly or partially located in wetlands in central Uganda, according to a 2018 audit of the Wetland Management Department by the Office of the Auditor General. The audit partly attributed this to poor coordination between the Wetland Management Department and districts regarding dissemination of information on wetland boundaries, interference and pressure from powerful politicians or high-ranking government officials; and possible corruption of officials from the Uganda Land Commission, District Land Boards and Area Land Committees.

“We rarely see those cases, they are very minimal because we have a professional team. So, any person intending to compromise the enforcement team then he himself is equally liable to being charged,” Mr Nahabwe noted.

His comments are in stark contrast to a recently released Inspectorate of Government report, which estimates that the loss of environmental resources to corruption is an astronomical Shs2.28 trillion per year. The same report puts the cost of environmental pollution and degradation at Shs536.8b per year. 

On April 16, 2014, a Cabinet paper recommended the cancellation of land titles in wetlands in a bid to address the problem of wetlands degradation. It also directed that all titles in wetlands on public land acquired unlawfully after 1995 be cancelled by the Lands ministry. Enforcing these legal provisions has, however, proved to be complicated.

Discriminatory enforcement

Appearing before the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) in March, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA)’s director of health services and environment, Daniel Okello, revealed that “on the Nakivubo channel, the Cabinet sub-committee chaired by the prime minister assessed and recommended cancellation of titles. There was a list of titles to be cancelled. Along the way, some of the affected people went to court and got injunctions. “

A March 2018 memo from Nema to Dorothy Kisaka, the KCCA executive director, listed plots with titles for cancellation located in the wetland section of Bugolobi Bungalows. The list excludes UBC land because it was acquired before 1995 and Plot 469 Mpanga Close, which is exempted on account of a Court of Appeal ruling. Further, titles for plots in Kitintale Zone 12 and plots adjacent to Kampala Industrial Park are listed for cancellation. 

This raises the concern of discriminatory enforcement in light of the inconsistent application of the law. For instance, in 2014, a perimeter wall was erected by Royal Palms Suites at Butabika in Kinawataka wetland, compromising the long-term ecological integrity of the wetland, which along with Nakivubo and Lubigi are the three most critical wetland ecosystems in the city.

This happened six years after farmers in Kinawataka wetland were prevented from opening the wetland for cultivation and digging drainage channels.

“As Nema, we don’t discriminate. We treat everyone equally. We don’t discriminate in enforcement. If you are encroaching on a wetland then the law has to take its course,” Nahabwe argued.

A tall order?

Interventions by government agencies and civil society to restore degraded wetlands indicate the scale of the challenge. The 2018 audit reveals that countrywide, 628.9 hectares or 1554 acres are restored each year, yet 28,261 hectares or 69834.4 acres are lost each year. Typically, this net loss of wetlands is attributed to re-encroachment on restored wetland.

«When you look at the Lubigi wetland from where it starts, that is, I think Namungoona, around that area, it entirely falls on Kabaka’s mailo land title. That is the land title for Block 203, meaning a wetland, which is a public good, is located on land which is owned primarily by a certain individual,” Mr Denis Bugaya, the Buganda Land Board spokesperson, said, adding, “So, how do you balance the individual right of the owner and the public good, which is maintaining the environment?»

Public green spaces continue to be threatened by the prevailing unplanned city sprawl. These spaces are sites for community activities and recreational activities such as sports, which is critical given the capital city has a predominantly young population. Yet it is increasingly apparent that the value they contribute to make the city liveable is underestimated by the authorities and city planners, with an insatiable appetite to build on any open space.

The Uganda Vision 2040, a strategy to foster development, Uganda outlines the efforts necessary to restore ecosystems such as wetlands through the implementation of catchment-based systems, gazetting of vital wetlands for increased protection and monitoring and inspecting restored ecosystems.

However, it will take pragmatism rather than such lofty blueprints to save Kampala from being sank by ravaging floods.