Posted on June, 20 2007

By Chris Kasamba and Kimunya Mugo*

Uganda’s Waki River flows westerly through a mosaic of forests and wetlands, serving as a crucial source of freshwater for numerous communities along both sides of the river’s banks. Livestock, fish and wildlife also enjoy the river’s life-sustaining waters.

However, all is not well with the river and its water catchment area. Intensive logging, often for charcoal production, is degrading the river ecosystem, and fertilizer run-off from tobacco and sugar cane farming are polluting the waterways.

A relatively new activity, distilling molasses — a residue of sugar production — is posing additional threats to the river’s survival.

Economics and the environment
In Uganda, sugar factories sell molasses to distillers for the production of waragi, a locally-brewed gin. The distilled alcohol is in high demand and is traded within the country and as far as eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan. Each distiller can make up to US$9 a day from selling fifteen 20-litre jerrycans of alcohol. When the waragi gets to its final consumer, it can generate US$8-50 per jerrycan depending on the quality. Alcohol production is becoming more and more attractive as it earns much more than traditional farming activities.

But increased production is raising environmental concerns, particularly as waste from the alcohol-making process is being dumped straight into the Waki River. Fish kills and the death of other species near some 50 brewing sites along the river have been reported.

“The water is so heavily polluted that local people can’t even drink water from the river anymore,” said one local resident.

“The alcohol plants should be removed from here,” exclaimed another. “Fish are dying and we can’t fish as we did before. Only a few people are profiting from this business while many locals are dying from drinking waragi and other risks related with its distillation.”

Excessive use of fuel wood for the distillation process has also led to deforestation. And alcoholism is becoming a problem in many communities.

Poverty and the environment
Despite the problems, more and more people are getting into the waragi business. Farms are being neglected. Communities are affected.

WWF, through its Lake Albert Eastern Catchment Management Project, is working with local communities and other stakeholders to conserve the water catchment area. Faced with the challenge of trying to curb the adverse effects of the industry on the lake and mounting public health issues, concerted efforts are being made to help communities change their attitudes towards conservation and encourage them to adapt to less destructive practices.

“As a way of devising solutions to the problem, the project has been working together with the local authorities and has organized distillers into an association,” said Dr Musonda Mumba, Freshwater Programme Coordinator at WWF’s eastern Africa regional programme.

Dialogue with Uganda’s Kinyala Sugar Works, for example, has been initiated to try and find an alternative use of the molasses.

“We need to work very closely with the community and other stakeholders in order to engage communities in alternative income generating activities that are not detrimental to the environment,” Dr Mumba added.

“Saving the river will not only be for the benefit of the environment but the community itself and generations to come,” she added.

* Chris Kasamba is Project Executant for WWF’s Lake Albert Eastern Catchment Management Project. Kimunya Mugo is Communications Manager for WWF’s Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office.

END NOTES:

• The effluent discharge from molasses has high Chemical Oxygen Demand of 88,000 to 124,000 parts per million, and Biological Oxygen Demand of 30,000 to 45,000 parts per million. The national standard in Uganda is 100 parts per million and 50 parts per million respectively.

• Lake Albert, on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, is fed by the River Semliki and the Victoria Nile and drained by the Albert Nile.

• WWF’s Lake Albert Eastern Catchment Management Initiative Project  — funded by Norad and WWF-Norway — works closely with Uganda’s Wildlife Authority, National Forest Authority, Forest Inspection Division, Department of Water Development, and the National Environment Management Authority, as well as by local government agencies.