How tree planting drive restored salt production in Kasese District

A man packs salt in sacks at Lake Katwe in Kasese District recently. Following a tree planting campaign launched in 2012, at the shores of Lake Katwe, salt miners are now able to collect salt in large volumes. PHOTOS BY FELIX BASIIME

THURSDAY JUNE 22 2017

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-tree-planting-drive--salt-production--Kasese--District/688334-3981456-ikkn4yz/index.html

By FELIX BASIIME

KASESE- Ms Sanyu Madina, 27, is a salt miner at Lake Katwe in Kasese District. She has conducted this business for the last eight years and operates seven salt pans.
Salt pans are man-made features on the lake shores where salt forms naturally and according to Ms Madina, Lake Katwe has more than 1000 salt pans.
When Daily Monitor visited her at one of the salt pans, Ms Madina revealed that for the eight years, she has never experienced such huge volumes of salt being harvested currently.

“Since I was born, I have never seen such volume of salt produced here because there is no more flooding at the lake,” she says, adding, “Floods would submerge our salt pans and block us from mining the salt”.

The slopes over the years were laid open by salt miners who cut the trees to create the salt pans on the lake shores, leading to soil erosion that caused siltation and flooding of the lake hence low production of the salt in the lake for the last seven years.

She attributes the new changes to the restoration of the slopes around the lake after salt miners embarked on tree planting campaign since 2012, an initiative of National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), an environmental advocacy body.
Lake Katwe is a crater lake situated inside Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Mr Arinaitwe Kagongo, the NAPE guide at the lake, says business was slow since May 2010, after the lake flooded as a result of climate change threatening lives of more than 8,000 residents who depend on salt extraction for a living. 

“The flooding left more than 3,000 porters jobless and the urban authority lost Shs24m in revenue each year. Floods also forced residents to seek alternative jobs while a few resorted to extracting the muddy salty commonly known as Kifuufu, a poor quality that is at times sold to cattle keepers,” Mr Kagongo says.

Since then, the number of people working and owning small wells (salt plots) on the shallow lake kept dwindling due to slow business. Since May 2010, one could hardly find more than 20 people on the lake working.

A salt miner at peak season would earn between Shs20,000 to Shs 40,000 daily before the flooding of the lake. Mr Kagongo says the floods that hit the area between 2010, and 2011, dissolved the salt in more than 8,000 salt pans.
He attributed this to the environmental factors that Lake Katwe faced where the vegetation cover on the banks were degraded.

“Long ago, this crater salty lake was surrounded by a forest, but it is gone, so rain water just floods in the lake and therefore, salt rocks can’t form under such conditions, but we have rejuvenated it and now production has resumed in high gear,” he says.

According to Ms Madina, currently a sack of about 100kgs of rock salt goes for Shs15, 000 compared to the previous years when the lake would flood and there was nothing to extract.

“During the period of floods at the lake, a sack of 100kgs would sell between Shs 20,000 and Shs 30,000 because there was low production” she recalls.

In January 2012, salt extraction resumed at the salty Lake Katwe in Katwe-Kabatooro Town Council in Kasese District after a dormant one and half years due to flooding.
“The trees we planted have helped to reduce the erosion and flooding,” Ms Madina says.

Business usually booms during the dry seasons, (from January to March and June-September) when the water in the shallow lake evaporates, exposing the salty rocks underneath. 

The salty lakes in Kasese District used to be Katwe, Nyamunuka, Bunyampaka and Munyanyange but today, only Katwe and Bunyampaka have salt.
Traders around East and Central Africa have for many years flocked Lake Katwe to load about eight to 10 lorries of salt daily. 

The lake produces three types of salt; Crude salt for animal leak, edible salt (sodium chloride) and unwashed salt.

Revenue
According to the Town Clerk of Katwe-Kabatooro, Mr Godwin Bihanikire, in the last financial year, the urban authority received Shs438m in revenue as loading fees at the lake but in the new budget, they have projected Shs458m.
Mr Kagongo says Lake Katwe would have become barren like other salt lakes in the district if there were no interventions by NAPE and the salt miners to rejuvenate it.

“The problem is that we used to cut the grass and trees from the slopes around the lake and on the lake banks to create our salt wells, which caused the rain water runoff, but this stopped and we started using sand in sacks,” says Ms Halima Nasanga, a worker at the lake.

Mr Jeconious Musingwiire, the western region public awareness officer for NEMA, says: “There is need to properly manage the water catchment areas around Lake Katwe.”

Lake Katwe remains the main source of income among the inhabitants of Katwe-Kabatoro Town Council in Busongora South. People still practice rudimentary mining of salt to earn a living.
As a solution to the current high production, Kagongo said they are trying to boost local market.

“As miners, we are trying to boost the local market of the salt through sensitising the public that Katwe salt is safe for both human and animal consumption,” he adds. 

How goats are keeping girls in school in Kabarole

Ms Annet Mbabazi. Photo by Felix Basiime 

SUNDAY MAY 7 2017

By Felix Basiime

http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Full-Woman/How-goats-are-keeping-girls-in-school/689842-3916520-2rvjf3/index.html

KABAROLE:

To safeguard against parents being tempted to pull their girls out of school to marry them off for goats, parents are given goats but on condition that they keep their daughters in school.

Naome Aisha, 12, walks over three kilometres daily from home to study in Primary Five at Mahyoro SDA Primary School in Mahyoro village, Karangura Sub County in Kabarole District.

Her parents, Nathan Mutera and Jackeline Biira, are peasants and at times fail to raise school fees and money for other scholastic materials.

Aisha is not alone facing this challenge. Annette Mbabazi, 14, also walks over three kilometres to study in Primary Seven at Kibyo Primary School in Kibyo village, also in Karangura. Her parents, Peter Rwabutuku and Topista Kirinda, are peasants too who grow beans and sell them to raise part of her school dues.

Both Aisha and Mbabazi grew up in a rural set up where early marriage is the order of the day due to the traditions and myths among the people in this hilly area. Here, a girl hardly studies beyond Primary Five. If she is not married off by her parents for quick money, she runs a risk of boys waylay her on the way back from school in the evenings and raping her, and the next day parents of both parties meet to settle the dowry, which is between Shs 500,000 to Shs1m.

Goats to the rescue
However, Aisha, Mbabazi and some other needy girls in this district have managed to remain in school and stay focused on education despite the odds stacked against them in the rural set up that include a cob web of cultural beliefs and myths about young girls.

A goat project undertaken by Joy For Children (JFCU), an NGO operating in the Rwenzori sub region, has kept the girls at school.

JFCU gave 33 and 29 goats to girls at Kibyo SDA and Mahyoro Primary Schools respectively. Aisha and Mbabazi are among the beneficiaries of the goat project. Since 2005, Joy For Children-Uganda has been advocating for and supporting the rights and needs of vulnerable children in Uganda.

Along with a team of local and international volunteers, the NGO and its partners among others work to prevent all forms of violence against children, including child labour, ensure access to high-quality education for all children, and end the exploitation of girls and the practice of child marriage.

The goat project code named; Girls Empower Project “Is piloted in Karangura Sub County, Kabarole district in two schools; Mashyoro and Kibyo primary schools,” says Jennifer Kahumuza, the area coordinator (Kabarole) Joy for Children Uganda.
“I received the goat in 2015. This goat is my security to stay at school. I make sure that before I go to school, I first take it to feed it and in the evening I come back rushing to untether it. If my parents ever fail to raise fees, I will sell its produce and remain in school,” says Aisha.

“I also got a goat in 2015. It has now delivered twice, I have to safeguard my goats so that they help me stay in school until higher education,” says Mbabazi.

“It is very difficult to nurture and teach girls in this area; they are enticed with small money to drop out of school by boys because of poverty,” says Joy Muke, the Senior Woman at Kibyo Primary School.

She says the challenges of a girlchild in these hilly hard-to -reach area include walking long distances to school and the girls “meet many evils on the way.”

At school, she says when a girl gets her monthly period, she is sent back home and misses classes. “There is poverty, no sanitary pads and parents cannot afford them. There are also no private washrooms at school where girls can help themselves,” says Muke. “Without enough support and counselling for these girls by parents and teachers, child marriages will remain high in Uganda.”

The cultural inhibitions
The rolling Karangura area is predominantly inhabited by Bakonjo whose most traditional rural set up parents marry off young girls. “The social, cultural traditions of Bakonjo consider marriage prestigious. The target for the parents is to get goats (as dowry) from the marriage unions and this has affected the girls’ chances to continue with education,” Muke observes.

She says that Joy For Children has invested in sensitising the parents in the area about marrying off their young girls and has shown them the benefits of education.
“The parents have now started knowing the value of education more than before, there is definitely great improvement of recent,” Muke says.

According to UNESCO, Uganda has a very low primary survival rate of 33 per cent, this means that only one third of children starting together in Primary One still being together when completing the primary cycle in Primary Seven.

The primary survival rate in neighbouring Tanzania is 78 per cent. Major causes of school dropouts in Uganda are early marriages and teenage pregnancies according to Out of School Children Study in Uganda, 2014.

The Girls Empower project is aimed at reducing the high rate of school dropout by preventing early pregnancies and child marriages.
“Child marriage in Uganda is a result of many things. Mainly, it is a result of poverty as well as limited access to education for girls,” Kahumuza says, adding, “Furthermore, strong traditional and social norms exist, which dictate that girls are married at a young age in order to fulfil their role as a wife and mother.”

A survey carried out by the organisation in the mountainous sub counties of Kabarole District of Karangura, Kabonero, and Kateebwa inhabited mainly by Bakonjo in July –October 2013; found out that child marriage is the leading cause of girls dropping out of school.

At Nyarukamba Primary school in Karangura, the school dropout rate of girls for marriage was at 15 per cent in 2009 and 10 per cent in 2012. The young girls are married off in exchange for goats, ranging from one to five.
The same survey tells a story of a 14-year-old who did not sit for her Primary Leaving Examination 2013 at Nyarukamba Primary school.

Her parents negotiated for her marriage without her consent in exchange for two goats in a nearby community. The headteacher reported the case to police but the parents insisted that their daughter went to visit her relatives in another district.
Finding solutions.

The Girls Empower project have designed several strategies to combact these challenges including raising awareness, and education and empowerment through school outreaches to monitor formation and strengthening of child-rights clubs.

They are also training local leaders to participate in advocacy, giving out goats after signing a Memorandum of Understanding by parents committing to keep their girls in school, procurement and supply of scholastic materials, radio programs, training in life skills and making re-usable sanitary towels.

The project has so far reached 100 families targeting mainly vulnerable girls.

Mukewants government to set up more schools in Kabarole District, especially in the hilly areas such as Karangura so as to reduce on the distance walked by girl children from home to school. “Let government provide each school with a washroom and the NGOs provide basins and sanitary pads to girl pupils,” Muke says.

He adds, “Government should also hire more female teachers at all schools in the country. You find at some instances a male teacher acting as ‘Senior Man’ to handle girlchild issues at schools because some schools don’t have female teachers.”

“Government and NGOs should give teachers in such hard-to-reach areas more essentials because we face a lot of challenges, you find I use my own resources to sensitise girls and parents,” Muke observes.

She adds, “About three years ago, girl- children were not going beyond Primary Five but now most reach Primary Seven.”

What is government doing?
Asked what programmes Kabarole District has put in place to avert early child marriages or to see children continue with education, the district vice chairman, Moses Ikagobya explains, “We lobbied Save the Children to help children, especially those out of school, by availing training in vocational skills.
“We also do sensitisation in collaboration with the schools administration through music, dance and drama”.

In October 2016, State Minister for Primary Health Care, Joyce Moriku, while commemorating Safe Motherhood Day for Bundibugyo and Ntoroko Districts in Ntoroko District cautioned girls against engaging in sexual relations when they are still young as it endangers their lives and distorts their future.

She further said; “As government struggles to enhance health services in the country in fighting maternal mortality rates, parents also need to play their responsibility of warning children about the dangers of early marriages and early pregnancies. Most pregnant mothers who get complications during delivery are young girls, therefore, to reduce this problem of high maternal mortality rates, parents also have a crucial role to play,” she said.

The statistics
According to a research on the situation of Uganda’s children carried out in Western Uganda in 2015 by Jostas Mwebembezi, an IT expert at Ride Africa, there is a gap in providing sex education.

“Our children might be at risk of engaging in sexual relations early, we have a lot of trouble trying to educate our children about sex education. We think we will tell our children to abstain, but they may not. There is a gap in providing sex education by the different people-by the parents, religious leaders or other people in the community” the research released on February 4, 2016, says.

The research was carried out in the Western districts of Bundibugyo, Hoima, Kabarole, Ntoroko, Kyegegwa, Kamwenge, Kasese, Kibaale, Kyenjojo, Masindi, and Buliisa.
According to the research, one in every four adolescents in Western region has had a teenage pregnancy while girls with even just primary level education are two times less likely to have had sex, while girls with secondary education are three times less likely.

According to the National Census report released by UBOS in 2016, in Kabarole District 82.4 per cent of children aged six to 12 years attend primary school. But the same report indicates that 82.4 per cent aged 15 years and older are not in school, having gone up to Senior Four as their highest level of education. The 2015 National service delivery survey, also conducted by UBOS, found that 72 per cent of primary schools in Tooro region provide lunch to pupils. Also, over eight in every 10 day pupils in Tooro travelled three kilometres or less to school.

Agony as Ntoroko loses 15,000 cattle to drought

Joint efforts. Herders assist a cow to stand in Rwebisengo Sub-county , Ntoroko District. Currently many animals are weak, while others are dying of starvation. PHOTO BY SCOVIA ATUHAIRE. 

THURSDAY MAY 11 2017

In Summary

·         Plight. According to the district veterinary officer, many cows have died due to starvation caused by lack of pasture and water.

By SCOVIA ATUHAIRE & FELIX BASIIME

Ntoroko. Herders in Ntoroko Distict have been left in agony as they count losses following the death of more than 15,000 cattle due to prolonged drought, district veterinary officials have revealed. 

Not only has the situation led to a drastic drop in prices of cattle, it has also put the lives of residents at risk as they have nothing left to depend on.

The small town that sits on the southern shores of Lake Albert has since July last year experienced constant floods and drought that have destroyed crops, pastures and swept away houses and roads.

According to the district veterinary officer, Dr Patrick Bagonza, this has painted a gloomy picture among the Tuku community.

“Many cows have died because of starvation due to lack of pastures and water. Some farmers had constructed dams but they all dried up,” Dr Bagonza said.
The areas most hit by drought are Budiba, Kibuuku, Kanaara, Bweramure, Butungama and parts of Rwebisengo Town Council among others.

Although some areas neighbour Semuliki National Park, herders have been denied access to the pastures in the park which has left their animals gaunt and feeble.

According to Dr Bagonza, the animals need to be supported in order to move since they cannot ably stand on their own.
Currently diseases like trypanosomiasis and ticks are on the rise due to the low immunity among cattle.

According to the district information officer, Mr Ibrahim Baluku, transacting businesses in Ntoroko has proved perilous as the area is hit by floods and drought back-to-back each year.

However, whenever the area is hit by catastrophes, the government only responds through donation of relief items like posho, beans, jerrycans and tents which residents say cannot sustain them for a long period.

Contaminated water
Residents in Rwebisengo Sub-county, which is the most drought hit, have no option left but to compete for the dirty salty pond water with their animals, which exposes them to higher risks of acquiring water borne diseases.

Although no human deaths have so far been reported, there are fears that if the situation is not arrested, it will get out of hand.

“If cattle keepers are taught how to make hay and silage for the future, I think this can solve the issue of shortage pasture during the rainy season. Hay and silage can be kept for long and used in future,” Dr Bagonza reasoned.

The Rwebisengo Sub-county chairperson, Mr Christopher Mujungu, observes that the drought has also affected the local revenue.

“The sub-county has been getting about 80 per cent of its local revenue from cattle. Government work is now at a standstill because we are depending on central government releases that cannot enable us push on with our community work,” Mr Mujungu said.

He added that in the last quarter, the sub-county received about Shs20 million in local revenue from cattle markets but this has since dropped to Shs12m this quarter.

The chairman Rwebisengo Cattle Keepers Association, Mr Charles Mujungu Kasoro, predicts harder times ahead.

Pledges
During the 2016 campaigns, President Museveni promised to extend water to the area to benefit people as well as feed their starving animals but the residents are waiting for the President to fulfill his pledge.

“President Museveni pledged to avail us safe water but we have never seen anything and yet we lose our cows to starvation every year,” Mr Kasoro noted.

According to Mr Kasoro, prices of cattle have gone so low because of the current situation. “We used to sell mature cows between Shs700,000 and Shs900,000 but now prices have gone down to as low as Shs50,000 to Shs70,000 for an emaciated cow and a dead one goes at Shs50,000 or just buried as we don’t get buyers,” he said.

Ntoroko District is inhabited by the Bakonjo and Batuku indigenous tribes as cultivators and cattle keepers respectively.
Batuku depend mostly on milk from their cattle because they don’t grow crops.

“Imagine living a culture of buying food, it means without money you cannot eat” he said.

Speaking to Daily Monitor, Mr Patrick Muhumuza , a meat dealer in Rwebisengo, noted that although prices have gone down, the demand for meat is also low as many cows are being slaughtered daily.

“Some months ago, I used to buy cows between Shs 200,000 and Shs 300,000 when sunshine was not much but now I buy them at Shs50,000 because many cows are dying. We slaughter them, dry the meat and sell it in markets depending on the size of dried meat; we sell between Shs 5, 000 and Shs12,000 per kg,” he said

Lobbying for support
However, the area Member of Parliament, Mr Gerald Rwemulikya, said he has already engaged the Prime Minister for relief and other interventions. 

Mr Rwemulikya said he received five tonnes of maize for planting in March. “I kept it because our people may eat the seeds because of drought and it is treated and poisonous”

According to the district chairman, Mr Timothy Kyamanywa, the drought and floods have always stretched the district budget and resources by increasing the cost of containing malaria, especially among the children.

Voices

“I have lost 82 heads of cattle since December 2016. These cows are my everything because they are my source of income. My children trek 5km looking for safe water for drinking,” Alexander Mujwara, cattle keeper

“Since the dry spell in December, 2016 I have nothing to prepare for my children because food prices have gone high and I have no money. We sometimes spend a day hungry because of lack of money,” Ester Kabarwani, resident

Degradation threatens Kamwenge ecosystem

A section of vegetation at Mpanga falls in Kamwenge District that has been heavily degraded. PHOTO BY FELIX BASIIME 

THURSDAY MAY 25 2017

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Degradation---Kamwenge--ecosystem/688334-3940490-pln6fgz/index.html

By FELIX BASIIME

KAMWENGE- Kamwenge District leaders and conservationists have expressed concern over an impending environment catastrophe if the ongoing rampant degradation of the environment in the district is not curbed.

There is uncontrolled tree cutting, charcoal burning, encroachment on wetlands and human activities that have led to a drop in water level in River Mpanga.

Environmentalists warn that if such activities go on unchecked in the next three years, the ecosystem will be severely damaged and Mpanga power station will be forced to close due to low levels of water .

“Mpanga power plant that was designed to produce 18 megawatts now produces eight megawatts due to siltation and dropping levels of water in River Mpanga,” said Mr Elija Biryabarema, the Kamwenge Resident District Commissioner (RDC), during a recent workshop for water officers in Rwenzori sub-region in Kamwenge Town.

He added: “There is rampant tree cutting along River Mpanga ecosystem and the entire district.

Most tributaries or streams that empty into Mpanga River have been diverted and this must stop.”

Mr William Kasango, the Kamwenge natural resources officer, said: “We have been fighting with the people, especially in Ntara and Kanara sub-counties but they don’t heed. Some have been taken to court for cutting trees. This week we impounded five trucks of charcoal, we fine each truck between Shs800,000 to Shs1 million”.

He added: “At times the power plant generates as low as three megawatts on some days due to the reduced waters in Mpanga River. However, the problem does not start from Kamwenge but upstream in Kabarole District where the river starts.”

When contacted, Kitagwenda County MP Abasi Agaba said: “Am not aware of rampant charcoal burning in my area but if it is true, this must stop. We can’t let people destroy our precious natural resources”.

Conservationists fear that the eco system at Mpanga falls, which has many rare cycad plants, could be irrevocably destroyed.

“Uganda is known for its natural beauty and is proudly called the Pearl of Africa but uncontrolled charcoal burning has left many areas deforested and a time of changing climate has brought a lot of new challenges to the country’s population. When this happens to unique ecosystems, the impact is even worse,” said Mr Lieven Peeters, the regional representative of Protos Uganda-Burundi-DRC.

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