Uganda conservation news update – Mt. Elgon again the target for ‘resettlement land’

DOES ASSAULTING THE ENVIRONMENT CREATE POPULARITY AND POLITICAL CAPITAL

Mount Elgon National Park, already constantly in the bad news over encroachment, illegal logging and poaching, killing of park rangers and the increasing danger of yet more major landslides, has been given another back stab recently, when of all people president Museveni appears to have directed the Uganda Wildlife Authority to return part of the park land to ‘its owners’, suggesting that errors were made during the lengthy and consultative demarcation of the park boundaries a few years back and that ‘people’s land was made part of the park when it should have remained outside the boundaries’. The ‘displaced’, numbering reportedly hundreds of families, are said to be living in ‘deplorable conditions’ and have been part of the groups to whom politicians vying for votes had promised ‘resettlement’ before the elections.

The presidential directive of course opens the door to more such demands and there is a growing danger that this key national water tower in the East of the country will sooner than later be dissected notwithstanding that across the border with Kenya the mountain is and remains a national park with no indication of similar troubles and problems.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority seems to be fighting a losing battle here, considering that the organisation is weakened through the upheavals of the past several months, when leading conservation minded senior executives – regularly standing in the way of such attempts to ‘carve out’ settlement areas from park land – were sacked, and in subsequent court cases UWA was then left without a board and a management team on ‘acting’ appointments caught between a rock and a hard place of just how far to follow political directives, especially if outside the law or borderline cases, while hoping to secure permanent appointments from exactly those. Standing up to such directives takes backbone and personal integrity, and this correspondent, while mostly in strong support of the president, in this case has to disagree in the interest of conservation and the long term future of the environment, especially when there is a possibility that the president was not given the true facts about locations and ‘entitlements’ and his office is being used to ‘give back to the voters’.

The information leaked to the public over the weekend and made its way into the media and indicates that the president wrote to the prime minister a month ago, asking for the land in question to be degazetted, which however is a lengthy process and requires parliamentary approval, as it was parliament which sanctioned the boundaries of ALL protected areas in the country, including Mt. Elgon.

The very same section of the park however poses also a deadly threat to encroachers and ‘resettlees’ as a deep fissure has started to open further up the mountain, caused by suspected seismic activity, deforestation and massive rain last year, which softened the underground and led to an entire village, Bududa, being swept away and buried under tens of feet of mud and rock.

Only last month were attacks on rangers reported again from this ‘hotbed of a park’ as one regular source put it, hopefully not a harbinger of things to come, should the confrontation, now that the president’s demand has been made public, take a turn to the worse should emboldened agitators incite more violence to press for their case.

UWA had in past weeks repeatedly warned of the dangers of more rock and mudslides, but was promptly blamed for ‘negative publicity’ and using this as a ’pretext to evict people from the park’, yet according to a regular and reliable source from within UWA, the problem now is worse than before and allowing people into the area could court yet more disasters.

Across Eastern Africa have promises, made during elections campaigns, been taking aim at protected areas, a cheap and often defenceless target, especially when those in the know are cowed and at times threatened to shut up and look the other way while international conservation societies and groups – while most welcome when they raise crucially needed funds – are reduced to ‘foreigners wanting to deny us development’ after politicians had spoken out in favour of mining, roads and major other infrastructural projects, many of which, with just a little extra thought, could be relocated to less vulnerable parts of the country. Yet, as always it is votes which count, and wildlife and nature do only have advocates but cannot cast votes. It is noteworthy though to point out that Rwanda has an exemplary record amongst the five East African Community member states and conservation and upholding biodiversity enjoys the personal attention of none other than President Kagame.

The conservation fraternity, concerned with keeping the parks, game and forest reserves in Eastern Africa intact and preserved for future generations, better prepares for the onslaught to intensify and get worse in coming years, and no one should say the writing was not visible on the wall.

Watch this space.

Aviation breaking news – Egypt Air ‘suspends’ flights to Juba

EGYPT AIR ‘SUSPENDS’ JUBA FLIGHTS

Information was received overnight that Egypt Air’s service between Cairo via Khartoum to Juba, previously operated twice a week, has been suspended indefinitely.

While talking of a ‘resumption of flights sometime in the future’ this has been dismissed as ‘hogwash’ by an aviation figure in Juba who added: ‘they have failed to attract market share. Their routing from Cairo first to Khartoum has condemned this operation to failure. We in the South are now moving towards independence and being forced to travel via Khartoum is not what many of us prefer. The timing of the flight is also bad. If there is a delay, and there have been many, the flight from Khartoum to Juba cannot operate easily because Juba is open for daylight operations only. So at a certain time they would just from Khartoum fly back to Cairo and offload passengers to Juba and strand them in a hostile environment. At least until 09^th July we have the same passports still but what after independence, our people will probably need Visa and may be treated like spies or badly’.

Only recently was a report filed here over massive allegations of mistreatment and racist comments being made towards Southern Sudanese travellers on this flight by Cairo airport staff, when they were told the delay would result in them not travelling at all as the flight would only go as far as Khartoum. When these news spread this was almost the death knell for the operation, besides the recent political upheavals in Egypt when no one wanted to travel via Cairo with curfews in place and flight cancellations galore.

It is not sure if and in fact when Egypt Air may resume flights to Juba, but not likely before independence – due on 09^th July – and then only as a non-stop service leaving out Khartoum, as otherwise the route would again be subject to all the same issues which now led to the ‘suspension’ of operations.

Watch this space for breaking aviation news from Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean region.

Tanzania conservation news update – The great herds are stirring as migration to the North goes underway

THE MIGRATION COMMENCES – WILL IT BE ONE OF THE LAST?

The great herds of wildebeest are stirring again after the calving season in the low grass plains between the Serengeti and Ngorongoro is coming to an end. The young wildebeest are now strong enough on their four feet to follow their mothers, as the age old trek in search of pastures once again begins, as it has been in times of plenty and times of little for generations upon generations.

The great herds are starting their move en masse, final destination being the rich pastures of the Masai Mara in neighbouring Kenya, which is part of the greater Serengeti transboundary ecosystem.

Between end March / beginning of April and late June / early July, when they are expected to cross the Mara river, the hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebra have to run a gauntlet of predators, lions, cheetah, leopard, hyenas, foxes and hunting dogs as they migrate through hostile territory.

Covering distances of hundreds of miles in the process, feeding only occasionally as their instincts drive the herds on, they fill parts of the Serengeti with ‘life’ which for much of the rest of the year lack this spectacle with often few animals seen on gamedrives, before the wildebeest ‘return’ in their constant cycle of searching for food and reproduction.

Conservation experts are watching the migration this year with bated breath, since the government of Tanzania has declared their intention to go ahead with a new highway across the migration route, claiming publicly it is ‘to serve the people’ but in reality serving powerful mining interests, which in the process also threaten the flamingo breeding grounds at Lake Natron and where in particular gold mining brings with it a host of pollution problems, many say Tanzania is ill equipped to deal with, risking the poisoning of large swathes of land around the mines and processing plants.

Water, already a limited resource, which will be used in mining operations for gold and other minerals in areas just outside the present boundaries of the Serengeti, will become even scarcer, in the process affecting people, livestock and wildlife.

Once construction of the highway goes underway – although there is still some hope left that un-corruptible individuals tasked with the Environmental Impact Studies may put a halt to the plans – the path for the great migration will be irrevocably disturbed and the future of the migration in its present age old cycle of North to South to North to South may become a thing of the past.

Estimates presented by studies of globally respected and renowned institutions with experience in monitoring the Serengeti / Masai Mara migration, speaks of a reduction of the herds to a fraction of their present size, causing likely yet greater damages to the ecosystem when the ‘natural lawn mowers’ will no longer consume the grass, thus posing much greater fire risks, and removing much of the ‘natural fertilizer’ left behind by the herds as they move on.

Estimates of traffic development on the planned highway, in fact presented by government itself, show an alarming rise in traffic over the coming years and decades, making it all but clear that the highway will sooner or later be paved, then probably fenced off to prevent animals from crossing it and causing accidents and then condemning the great herds to the loss of their annual feeding grounds in the Masai Mara. This will be the death knell for the great migration as we know it, and as this year’s trek from the low grass plains back to the Masai Mara goes underway, it may well be the last one as we have known it.

The advice of this correspondent: Visit now as is may not be there for much longer in the future.