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As floods worsen, Uganda moves to protect its vanishing wetlands

(Reuters, 29 Nov 2021) Environmental officials are cracking down on wetland filling - but removing jobs-providing industries from wetland areas will prove a significant challenge, analysts say.

Until recently, truck drivers who poured fill into wetlands near Uganda's capital, to illegally create new land for building or agricultural expansion, rarely met any resistance.

But since Barirega Akankwasah became executive director of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) in September, some of those drivers have ended up in jail.

"We have a plea of guilty, hence we shall soon have a conviction. Another three are in coolers" awaiting trial, he said, using a slang word for police detention.

"This will deter others from destroying our valued environment," Akankwasah told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

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Reuters, 29 Nov 2021: As floods worsen, Uganda moves to protect its vanishing wetlands