Arach addressing journalists
The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has advised government to heighten the fight against environmental degradation.
As government, through Parliament moved to restore the degraded Lwera Swamps on Masaka Road, UPC said this intervention should be extended to the rest of the country.
“We would like to applaud the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Natural Resources for its intervention to save Lwera swamp lands along Kampala-Masaka road which saw three companies that have been engaged in sand mining suspended with immediate effect,” Sharon Oyat Arach, the UPC Spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday.
The Parliamentary move, she said should be an eye-opener for the government and National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) that all is not well with the environment.
“As a country, we have a big challenge to preserve the environment at a time when climate change issues are threatening the entire globe. Lwera swamp lands are part of the Lake Victoria-Nile basin and this basin extends into the Great Lakes Region,” she said.
“Anything that destroys or degrades Lwera swamp lands affects a greater ecosystem and the consequences are very difficult to handle,” she added.
UPC, she said has been at the forefront of calling upon government to restore water catchment areas across the country to minimize the effects of climate change due to manmade activities.
“For instance; swamp lands like Lwera are huge reservoirs of water that directly pours into Lake Victoria and have a moderating influence on weather and climate which contributes to rainfall thus leading to agricultural activities.”
“Any sand mining and rice growing that is not well thought of in such wetlands certainly creates more and more challenges which are very difficult to deal with.”
