Conservationists at the Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) are troubled by the invasion of a rare plant species threatening the survival of the natural plant cover and animals in the park. The wild plant, sicklebush (dichrostachys cinerea), first noticed in 2014, has defied high-end containment measures like mechanical uproots and is highly resistant to fire.
Philemon Tumwebaze, the ecological monitoring and research officer at the park, says the deadly plant-locally known as Kalemanjonjo-has, since invasion, eaten up 40 percent of the 1,978 square kilometres that make up the park. With the park covered by savannah, a combination of the invasive plant and changing rainfall patterns has left it looking like a bushland. Wild crops have thrived, and this has created a picture that’s not soft on the eye.
‘These conditions have given opportunities to sicklebush to flourish. This invasive species is dangerous in a way that it grows and occupies areas that were formerly grazing areas for wild animals. As it grows, it forms a canopy and suppresses the native grass and fire can’t burn it,’ Tumwebaze says. He adds: ‘So far, over 40 percent (79,120 hectares) of the entire park has been invaded.’
What is the scale of the problem?
In 2014, authorities were concerned enough to commission a study after the sicklebush reared its ugly head and took out crops that wild animals in the park-both herbivores and carnivores-thrive off. ‘With this challenge threatening the ecosystem, as of 2014, we started studies of how it can be managed using both biological, mechanical and manual means. Between 2018 and 2019, a big area of about 4,000 hectares of the park that had been invaded by sicklebush was opened up using bulldozers. It looked beautiful at the beginning, but the regrowth became worse and the area worked on again covered up,’ Tumwebaze says. He adds: ‘A biological method of using climbers and insects to feed on them wasn’t successful.’
The vast bulk of tour guides at the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) attached to the park say at first, locals near the park advised against the use of highly mechanised tools such as bulldozers to wipe out the plant. We understand that their advice was ignored.
Has a manual approach managed to bear any fruits?
It has in fact been surprisingly effective. After a series of failed attempts, management deployed locally sourced personnel from within the community to manually uproot the plant. The gamble paid off. ‘Later, manual removal of cutting sicklebush, uprooting and burning plus seeding or planting native grass species in a worked area has proved to manage the invasives by 80 percent to 85 percent,’ Tumwebaze says.
He adds: ‘From last financial year to date, we have been able to clear 761.5 hectares manually out of the total area invaded using registered community groups. To achieve 85 percent success, you work in one area in three phases. The first phase is for cutting, uprooting and burning; the second phase, done after six months, involves the removal of the regrown and plant native growth.’ There is also a third phase that involves removing any regrowth and further replanting the grass. After, the monitoring begins. Tumwebaze says whereas ‘this approach is labour intensive and costly, it so far the only ecologically friendly intervention’ that the park conservationists are counting on to tackle the deadly plant species.
What costs are we looking at here?
Tumwebaze says management spends a minimum of Shs6m to clear each hectare colonised by the sicklebush. That is for the first phase. The cost for the second and third phases is, he discloses, Shs2m per hectare. ‘The Shs4m per hectare includes six percent withholding tax, equipment, food and accommodation for the workers. To work on a hectare, you need 25 people, who do the work in 10 days. We pay Shs16,000 per person per day, including everything,’ Tumwebaze says.
Specifically, how has the plant impacted animals in the park?
It has pushed them out of the park because it is thorny and cannot be consumed by herbivores. It also does not provide shelter to animals. Lawrence Kajura, a senior tour guide and ranger, says the plant has ‘colonised much of the grazing land for herbivores, hence resulting in animal migration into communities due to limited grazing space inside the park.’
Tumwebaze describes the plant as ‘dangerous.’ The park, he adds, ‘is a place that has lions, kobs, water bats that are supposed to live together. Where you have kobs is where you will have lions. And as the area is covered with invasive species, kobs have to move and as they move close to the communities, lions follow them and then, at the end of the day, lions come out of the park and they start causing human conflicts. That’s why we have interventions like electric fences to make sure our relationship with the park is harmonised.’
How are locals selected to manually uproot the invasive plant?
Eric Enyel, the Chief Warden of the park, says management employs local labourers drawn from communities surrounding the park to uproot the sicklebush.
These locals apply to take up the job through open bidding processes announced by UWA through the park offices in Kasese District. Successful applicants are then deployed to uproot the sicklebush by clearing up a hectare at a time.
In addition to the financial payment the labourers are given in the process, UWA management also permits the labourers to convert the uprooted wild plant into charcoal. In the process, this saves the pressure on the natural forest cover around the park.
What challenges are being faced?
Besides the invasive plant, UWA management at the park keeps grappling with poaching and the human-wildlife conflict. For the latter, animals such as elephants, lions, leopards, hippopotamuses, among others, often cross from the park to the community. They then eat and destroy people’s crops. Some people and livestock have also been killed.
The park is also affected by the population pressures occasioned by local persons surrounding the park. ‘There are 11 fishing villages inside the park. There is increased demand for resources, including wild meat, access roads and firewood, among others, making conservation difficult,’ Kajura says. The animals in the park are often affected by disease outbreaks, which are in some cases fatal to the animal population. Speaking to the interventions, Enyel discloses that part of the solutions in electric fences, but this has not come on the cheap.
‘To fence 11km alone, we use Shs645m,’ Enyel says, adding: ‘There are other areas we are trying to close.’
The electric fencing material is imported from countries like South Africa and Kenya. The materials are bulky and, therefore, costly to transport to various areas of the park before being erected. Previously, the electric fence was hinged on wooden poles, but these would rot. Metallic poles would also rust and pose a danger to the soil. Consequently, management resorted to using plastic material mixed with sand to give off a solid substance that has proved more reliable. To contain poachers, Kajura says there is ‘need for funding to procure more drones to enable us to surveil a wider area.’
How important is tourism to the park?
Enyel shares that ‘in the Financial Year [FY] 2024/2025, we received 128,608 visitors compared to the FY2023/2024 where we received a total of 90,851 visitors.’
As a result, ‘a total of Shs8.8b was collected as actual revenue from Queen Elizabeth Park in the FY2024/2025 against Shs7.8b the previous year. This is an annual increment of Shs1b, which translates to 11.8 percent.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is Uganda’s second largest national park, spanning 1,978 square kilometres.
Lawrence Kajura, a senior tour guide and ranger, says it ‘is also connected to Rwenzori Mountains National Park, which covers an area of 996 square kilometres; wildlife reserves such as Kyambura, which covers an areaof 157 square kilometres; and Kigezi wildlife reserve, which covers an area of 330 square kilometres, bringing the total to 3,461 square kilometres.’
He further says the park, then called Kazinga National Park, was gazetted in 1952, but was changed to Queen Elizabeth National Park in 1954 after the visiting of the Queen of England. He adds that the park is quite unique in that it’s easily accessible from all points using both Kampala, Mubende, Fort portal road and Kampala, Masaka, Mbarara road. The park is also home to ”climbing lions, houses 95 mammal species and over 600 bird species and has an underground forest in Kyambura where we do chimpanzee tracking.”
Kajura details that the park also has ’50 explosion craters, giving a great impression and scenic beauty and Nyamusingiri bat cave where you will see various species of staying around such as bats, leopards, snakes such as pythons and cobras, among others.’