According to Anywar, while they intend to safeguard the environment from destruction, their efforts are being frustrated by the ordinary court system under which encroachers take refuge to justify their actions or win arbitrary awards against the government.
The Ministry of Water and Environment has renewed demands to have
special courts established to handle environmental cases.
Due to the grave effects of environmental degradation caused by encroachments on wetlands, cultivating along critical shorelines and river
banks, and invasion on gazetted forest reserves, the State Minister for
Environment Beatrice Anywar wants the ministry to be empowered with courts that will address
environmental degradation.
The ministry is currently carrying out a national wide assessment
exercise on the effects of environmental degradation and the recent flooding in
the different parts of the country.
According to Anywar, while they intend to safeguard the
environment from destruction, their efforts are being frustrated by the ordinary
court system under which encroachers take refuge to justify their actions or
win arbitrary awards against the government.
She explains that the rate at which environment is being destroyed
requires specialized courts deployed with people having interests in
environmental protection who can save the country of the adverse effects of
degradation.
She argues that their teams spend a lot of time in courts arguing
cases, which gives time to encroachers to continue destroying the
environment.
//Cue in: “issues
of court…..
Cue out:….save the situation.”//
Anywar’s demands come in the wake of a High Court ruling which
awarded DMW Uganda Limited, a sand mining and Fish farming company 181 billion
shillings as compensation after government illegally cancelled their operation
permit in Lwera Wetland.
Anywar explains that they are now going back to the Judiciary and other
line ministries to resume the discussions that had earlier been initiated by
her predecessor Flavia Munaaba in 2015.
//Cue in: “government position is….
Cue out; ….advise them.”//
Doctor Tom Okrut, the Executive Director of the National Environmental
Management Authority-NEMA, says that they are also working out a program to map
out boundaries of all wetlands and forests reserves which will also support
their efforts to preserve the environment.
He also indicates that the current NEMA Act needs to be reinforced
with a specialized court to enable it to effectively deal with current trends
of destruction promptly.
The Water and Environment Sector Performance Report for 2019 indicates that the
country’s wetland coverage on the surface area had been reduced from 15.6% by
1994 to 8.9 percent, while the forest cover has also been gradually reducing
from 24% to 12.4 percent; which translates to 3.2 million hectares reducing to
2.5 million ha respectively.
