By Spy Uganda
Kampala: The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has arrested seven foreign nationals in connection with illegal sand mining in Lwera Wetland located in Kalungu District.
The operation that started in the night along Kampala-Masaka Road, also impounded 13 sinotruk lorries and four excavators, among other equipment.
In April this year, NEMA finally woken up and halted all illegal sand mining activities in Lwera during an earlier operation in which the said miners were tasked to restore the part of the wetland they had degraded.
President Yoweri Museveni has since backed the NEMA to evict encroachers from the wetlands.
Museveni in June advised the encroachers to voluntarily vacate the wetlands instead of playing the blame game and leveling accusations at the environmental watchdog.
“I’ve been seeing people commenting, but where was NEMA before these people settled in wetlands, why didn’t they stop them? Why should NEMA be the one to stop these people? Don’t you have eyes to see a swamp? We don’t need NEMA, who doesn’t know what a swamp is? wondered Museveni during the third Uganda Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) conference at the Speke Resort Convention Center in Kampala.
The president said he only sympathized with a few people in Busoga, Bukedi and Kigezi who he said were deceived by the colonial and independence governments, who introduced rice farming in swamps.
He urged NEMA to work with local leaders such as parish chiefs, Gombolola Internal Security Officer (GISO) and sub-national chiefs, adding that such leaders must be detained if a wetland is encroached upon.
Museveni said wetlands contribute 40 percent to rainfall and Uganda could become a desert if they are destroyed.
He added that wetlands act as filters for contaminated water before it reaches the lakes.
