After years of decline, new government estimates indicate that Uganda’s wetland coverage is recovering, but this restoration is slow and not happening in all affected areas. According to new data from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), the wetland coverage has increased from 8.9 percent in 2019 to 13.9 percent in 2025. This is still below the 15.6 percent coverage in 1994. The wetlands are essential in buffering communities against floods, purifying water, supporting biodiversity, and sustaining livelihoods.
But rapid urbanisation, population growth, agricultural expansion, and even sanctioned developments have pushed these vital ecosystems in many areas to the brink. Conservationists and researchers believe that conservation and restoration should be approached differently to achieve more impact. They say the most effective path forward lies not solely in top-down enforcement but in prioritising community governance to combat wetland degradation. Degradation of wetlands in Uganda is driven by many factors, with some, especially in urban areas and for major projects, people get permits from the government to alter (degrade) wetlands as they do construction and other projects.
But in many rural communities, people are also degrading wetlands without first getting these permits. Many people have degraded wetlands for rice and vegetable farming, brick and sand mining, settlement, and over harvesting of wetland resources like papyrus for craft, among others. ‘You find that most of the communities are moving down to the wetlands because they believe their soil is probably moving down to the wetlands,’ Ms Anke Barahukwa, the senior programme manager at Nature Uganda, shares her field experience. She continues: ‘So we come in to educate them. What is the relevance of this wetland? What would happen in 10 years if they continue degrading it like that?’
The conservationist also says that many do not have an alternative livelihood. ‘People are failing on wetland conservation because these are vulnerable communities. You find that they don’t have land elsewhere,’ she says. ‘Probably some of them are not educated, so they cannot look for jobs elsewhere -the white-collar jobs, and you find that they have to depend directly on this ecosystem. The population has grown, but the land is not growing,’ she adds. Mr Deo Kabaalu, the principal wetland officer at the Ministry of Water and Environment, explains the destruction of the environment by some of the influential and powerful businessmen in Uganda. ‘Wetland abuse is like any other criminal act.
People keep breaking the law. If you are to go to KCCA, for example, you’ll find people putting up structures and houses without approved plans,’ he says, when asked why this is happening. ‘So people are dumping soil into wetlands, which is a crime, and the authority, the ministry, is doing whatever it can to halt this.’ Mr Kabaalu admits they are also struggling to stop these criminals. ‘Criminality keeps changing. In 2010, we used to move to the wetland, and you just showed an identity card for the ministry, and people could run away, but now you have to move with guns, and even with guns, you find there is resistance,’ he reveals. But he says they have not given up. ‘We are responding.
But the rate at which these individuals do the degradation activities in the wetland is high,’ he says. ‘The second one, as a ministry, we have done a lot to bring this wetland awareness, and the President has been at the forefront. But you know, we need stakeholders involved. We need the people to join hands to say we put this on hold,’ he adds. Mr Kalaabu also explains that the President has directed them to stop giving permits for development in wetlands and that this move is behind the observed recovery in wetland coverage.
‘We know the law previously allowed individuals to request permits and conduct Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and then they approved the whole process. But after 20 years, we realised that the community had turned this into something automatic, that whenever you conduct an EIA, it should be approved,’ he says. ‘That’s why His Excellency [President Museveni] directed that we stop issuing permits in wetlands, and that has happened for the last five years, and we can see the impact. ‘Now, it’s hard to find somebody with the EIA, claiming that, apart from those that happened, and they are about to expire. We need wetland infrastructure because it is very important in sewage treatment, flood control and so on,’ he adds.
Cultural, community leadership
However, Ms Mariam Nkalubo Mayanja, the minister of Lands and Environment for the Buganda Kingdom, believes the government will achieve more impact when they work with cultural and community leaders surrounding these ecosystems. ‘Unsustainable land use practices have weakened both our wetlands and the traditional knowledge system that once protected them,’ she says. ‘In some cases, cultural values have been dismissed as outdated while modern development has proceeded without regard for ecological limits.’
Ms Barahukwa sheds more light. Citing how community governance has proven successful in Musambwa Island, where people live with birds and snakes because of existing traditional knowledge or taboos that bar people from killing snakes, she says the ecosystem has been conserved. The conservationist says this has turned the island into one of the best tourism destinations in the country, earning the country foreign exchange and supporting livelihood in this community.
‘For example, at Musambwa Island, the people there are not allowed to eat the eggs, which ensures that when these birds, the grey-headed gulls, migrate to the island and they are breeding. It will ensure that the population of the birds continues to grow because the people are not eating the eggs. And you have more of the population continuing to exist,’ she adds. Ms Barahukwa says they are working with communities to find solutions that would reduce the degradation and promote conservation.