By Chowoo Willy
Elephants have continued to destroy their gardens as Maize has become elephants’ food crop:
For Adok Santa, a 52-year-old mother of Seven, sleeping in her house has become something new, she has now spent three months sleeping in a makeshift in the middle of her two acres of millet garden to safeguard them from straying elephants from Uganda’s largest national park, Murchison Falls of 3,877 square kilometers. Sleeping in a makeshift has become a routine for every farming season, in the Nwoya district.
“You must sleep in your gardens to have something to harvest to feed your family at the end of each season, and people are losing both their crops and lives to the straying elephants, it is a matter of life and death”. Adok notes.
Adok is among the small-scale farmers in the sub-counties bordering Murchison Falls National Park who risk their lives and dare the cold nights to guard their gardens. To them, a mosquito bite is not a bad deal because there is a treatment for malaria; they claim ‘you rather die of sickness than hunger’.
“You rather fall sick of malaria while safeguarding your gardens than live without what to feed your family with”, Adok notes.
The elephants from the park have continued to invade and destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of crop gardens belonging to Lagazi cell, Purongo Town council in Nwoya District. It is of one the villages bordering Murchison Falls National Park.
In this village, 1,500 households have been affected this year alone, some of them have been displaced by the intrusive elephants and abandoned farming. This has made the farmers here sleep in their gardens to protect the remaining crops from being destroyed; many of them have been killed by the elephants while guarding their gardens. Four farmers have been killed over the last three months while guarding their gardens.
As one moves in those villages, you can see several makeshift solar-powered bulbs mounted on top of the makeshift across gardens to get real-time responses to the intrusion by the straying elephants looking for what to eat. The residents beat drums, and other apparatuses such as vuvuzelas in the night upon seeing the elephants in their gardens to drive them away.
“We don’t sleep, we stay awake throughout the night in our gardens, we make noise by beating jerrycans, saucepans, drum to chase them away, sometimes we burn woods so that the smokes drive them away”, Adok narrates the techniques they invented to save their food crops.
“This is our customary land, there is nowhere to move to, we dig here, we don’t have any land to dig on apart from this, but elephants from the park have continued to move us backward, they destroy our crops with impunity and we are not compensated, we cannot send our children to school, we are displaced”, Adoc Evelyn 38, another farmer and mother of four children, and victim of elephants intrusion.
Adoc used to plant her crops on her Eight-acre piece of land, but now she can use only four acres due to low harvest, and sometimes the elephants destroy them all. She rotates sleeping in the makeshift with her husband in the nights as one would sleep at home.
“For instance, you can see the elephants came here last night, and my husband who was on the night shift was taken up by sleep, the elephants ate my remaining one acre of rice, in the first season, they destroyed one acre of rice, millet and soya beans respectively. I am here just collecting the residues”, Adoc narrates.
Adok reveals that they are not sure even of their health because of sleeping in the cold through the night and not being able to produce children, “we are not producing children anymore because there is no time, most of the nights we are in the gardens”.
Akello Jeniffer-35, a mother of six, who has for the last eight years been sleeping in the makeshift in the nights to protect her gardens, has now given up after the death of her husband in 2020. For three years now, the elephant has always destroyed her gardens to zero collections and this has forced her and the children to do causal work in people’s gardens to sustain their family.
“I am very disappointed that this year, elephants destroyed my one acre of millet, soya beans, and maize when they were not mature when my husband was still alive, we used to exchange in sleeping in our gardens with him, but when I became a widow, I tried and failed to safeguard my gardens, I am here doing causal work to support my family”, Akello adds.
The small-scale farmers say they better lose their lives guarding their gardens to fight hunger than dying of hunger being propelled by the elephants from the park.
“We have no option, we are dying saving our crops from elephants, government has allowed this to happen for long, we rather die of elephant attacks than of hunger as result of no food to eat”, Amony Grace, 52 explains her frustration as tear drops from her eyes.
The farmers here accuse the government of failing to protect their lives and property, and they say seems the government values wildlife more than human beings because it gives them money. “ We have lost hope in this government, we had many meetings, but we don’t see any change, every year the same problem, we have lost lives and property to wildlife, and we are not compensated”, Ojok David, the LCI chairman of Lagazi Cell.
Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is Uganda’s Government agency responsible for managing and protecting Wildlife in and outside protected areas. The authority communication’s manager Hangi Bashir says they are aware of the issues of the problem animals but they have come many interventions such as setting up electric fences, digging trenches, and recruiting community scoots and rangers to reduce on-human-wildlife conflicts
“We receive 1,500 cases of human-wildlife conflict a week, but we are doing everything to stop that, at the moment we appeal to farmers neigbhouring the parks to stop planting crops that attract elephants”, Bashir adds.
In 2018, according to a report published by Uganda Wildlife Authority, Murchison Falls Conservation area recorded 1336 cases of Human-wildlife Conflict, one of the highest in the country
The looming hunger crisis as farmers cannot repay loans:
Most of the farmers in Nwoya district are small-scale farmers, according to Nwoya District Farmers Association; it estimates that they constitute 80% of the farmers in the district while only 3% are Commercial Farmers, of a total projected population of 315,000 people. According to statistics from the Nwoya District Agricultural Department, there are 293 registered small-scale farmers groups in the district with 9,289 members and 5, 821 are women. The majority of the farmers are not registered with the district.
Nwoya District Agricultural Officer Kilama Alfred says the problem animals have greatly affected production in the district. He adds that the small-scale farmers have continued to lose their crops to elephants annually which is a big threat to food security in the district.
“The human-wildlife conflict has gone beyond those sub counties neigbhouring the park only, sub-county like Lungulu which is far away from the park, elephants followed people have abandoned digging near the park and destroyed their crops from there, so they are driven by the smells of the crops, we have been advising farmers not to plant crops that can attract elephants”, Kilama adds.
Apart from people losing their crops to the beasts, they have also lost lives especially those who spend nights in the cold to protect their gardens. Between October and November 2023, elephants have killed four people in the district, three from their gardens and one from home. The imminent catastrophe is the hunger crisis; the farmers do not have what to eat.
The LC III of Lii Sub-county, Odong Justine Ajaji says between 15000-20000 small-scale farmers are affected in the sub-county, some have lost their lives, crops, and even marriages, “People are working in group to guard their gardens –when they make noise by blowing whistles and vuvuzelas, they beat drums, saucepans to chase the elephants, but the elephants instead turn against them-by killing them”
In this sub-county, parishes of Lutuk, Langele, and Lii neigbhouring the park are the most affected, and elephants have forced people here to move for 10kms away from the borderline, and they don’t have any food crops. According to local leaders in the areas, they estimate more than 10,000 acres of people’s gardens have been destroyed only this year by the elephants.
“Here, people don’t have what to eat, the elephants have displaced them, elephants are staying at people’s homes like dogs, whether it being the first or second season, the elephants are moving in group of 10 to 20”, Odong notes.
In the village of Lagazi cell in Purongo Town Council (formerly Purongo sub-county), half of 150 households have been displaced and have moved to town centers to look for what to do to feed their family.
“This is more than LRA war, people are losing their agricultural land to wild animals, people have abandoned planting crops like maize because it has become the food crop for elephants, we can’t continue like this”, LCI chairperson of Lagazi cell, Ojok David adds.
The community here has lost more than 5,000 acres to elephants this year, leaving homesteads without food forcing some people to do causal work in their colleague’s garden to earn a living. Ojok adds that “some people can’t eat twice, when you eat once, forget the next one, you plan for tomorrow”.
The authority in Purongo Town Council says they have reported to different offices, and had several meetings with UWA but there is nothing positive as people ran out of patience waiting for help.
“Elephants are destroying people’s crops from the gardens when they come with young ones, they are wild and they don’t go away even if people make noise, people don’t have what to eat”, Okot Ben LC III chairperson of Purongo sub-county noted.
The invasion by the beast has displaced so many people from their customary land as they abandoned farming to do small businesses within trading centers. Orach Emmanuel, Nwoya District chairman says farmers are discouraged from farming, “for two years now my people have abandoned their fertile land, this has greatly affected production and those who managed to plant their crops, it is so unfortunate that they have been destroyed, there are already early signs of hunger in the district”.
The intrusive elephants have made people not only lose their land but have forced them to sell their land to pay loans; most of the small-scale farmers who have got agricultural loans from banking institutions and organizations are now not able to repay their loans as their crops are destroyed by elephants.
Odong adds that many people in his sub-county of Lii have borrowed agricultural loans from CAPABLE- an organization working in the sub-county are on the run because they cannot pay their loans and they don’t have anything to sell to pay the loans they borrowed; “when they see their vehicle, they take off”. And this has led to breakages of families according to Odong.
Acellam Geoffrey a resident of Lukuk parish has lost half of his 10 acres of maize to elephants. “My garden has been destroyed and I don’t know where to get the money to pay the loan”, He got an agricultural loan from CAPABLE.
In the villages of Tetugu, Dog Ayago, and Got Layany in Lii sub-county alone, more than 1,000 acres have been destroyed and most of the farmers here have borrowed loans to support their farming, the community here says a minimum of 50 acres are destroyed every week.
Acellam is aware that processing compensation from UWA may take time even if he is planning to apply for it, “half of my garden has been destroyed, I am now applying for a compensation scheme, but the money may come late that would not help”.
This has forced him to put up two acres of the family land for sale to help repay a loan of sh2.6m and the balance shall be used to pay school fees. “I have to lose two acres, I discussed with my family members to allow me to sell part of the family land, to repay the loan, and there is nothing I can do at the moment”, Acellam adds.
In Lagazi cell, Purongo town council, a 35-year-old widow, Akello Jenifer who lost all her four acres of crops in the second season resorted to doing causal work to raise some money to help her repay her loan, she borrowed the loan from Lacen Makwo Pe Ginyero Group, a local Village and Saving Loan Association in Purongo Town council.
“I am struggling to repay my loan of sh795, 000, I was expecting to repay after the sale of my crops, but elephants destroyed all my maize and rice from gardens when they were not ready, I don’t know what to do at the moment, what I get from the causal work I do in people’s garden is not even enough to feed my family”, Akello narrates.
The issue of loans has caused some marriages to collapse as men are in hiding from those who want to collect their money. Odong adds that in his sub-county, men are staying in the bush and some have migrated to new places leaving their wives and children alone.
“Many marriages are breaking down, men borrowed loans since they are not able to pay, they abandon their women and their children, men, when they see the vehicle from CAPABLE, they take off because they don’t have what to give as loan repayment ”, Odong reveals.
The IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group defines human-wildlife conflict as a struggle that emerges when the presence or behaviors of wildlife poses an actual or perceived, direct and recurring threat to human interests or needs, leading to disagreement between groups of people and negative impacts on people and/ or wildlife.
Is a gov’t effort to reduce human-wildlife conflicts yielding fruits?
The 2009-2018 report by UWA on the causes of human-wildlife conflict in conservation areas in Uganda noted 17,567 cases of conflict, of which about 40 percent occurred at Murchison Falls, eight percent at Queen Elizabeth, five percent at Lake Mburo and five percent at Kidepo Valley Conservation Area. More than half of the cases occurred in parks where invasive species have flourished.
In the year 2022, there were 7,861 cases of human-wildlife conflicts reported to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). During his end-of-year message, the Executive Director of UWA Samuel Mwanha said they responded to 87.4% (6872) of those cases.
Due to the continued human-wildlife conflict , the government has derived several initiatives since 2018 to reduce human-wildlife conflicts among the communities neigbhouring national parks in the country. Such initiatives include electric fencing, trench digging and bee-keeping, rescue and translocation of animals as well as supporting livelihood projects that are curtailed by a funding deficit. UWA was also planning to pilot block farming among the communities surrounding the national Parks in the Country as a move to control crop damage.
The statistic shows that from 2008 to update, the cases of Human-wildlife conflict have been increasing each year worrying about the management of the conflict in the country.
But seems these mitigation measures are not yielding fruits as elephants continue to cause havoc propelling the fear of food insecurity especially in Nwoya district in Northern Uganda bordering Murchison Falls National Park. But what are these initiatives?
Digging trenches and recruiting community scouts:
According to UWA, there are around 5,000 elephants in Uganda today, and are mostly found in the landscapes of Kidepo, Murchison-Semliki, and the Greater Virunga Landscape. With 1,600 of them are at Murchison Falls NP.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) through UWA has dug several elephant trenches and planted rows of Mauritius thorn hedges along some sections of the park boundary to minimize crop raiding. They dug about 57kms of trenches along the sub-county of Lii (formerly Koch Goma) to help stop the elephants from crossing into the community land, at the initial, it helped, but the elephants being as wise as they are, derived a solution to it. They have been frustrated with this intervention.
“The elephants have backfilled all the trenches, it is now so porous and they use it to enter into community land”, Acellam Geoffrey, a local leader in Lii sub-county an affected community in Lutuk Parish, Lii sub-county.
Mr. Kizza Fredrick, MFNP Conservation Chief Warden says animals are like human beings, when one methodology becomes a routine, they get used to it, “we have different approaches to address that and I believe that is what we are going to do in these areas to address the problem”.
UWA has created several outposts for their rangers in the community as an intervention for timely response to drive elephants away from people’s gardens. It requires 850 rangers at the park to mitigate the impact of human-wildlife conflict. But the farmers accuse them of being inactive in servicing their purpose. According to the park authority
“We have cut communication with UWA because the rangers in the outposts are not responsive, if elephants cross into people gardens, you report to them, they don’t come”, Odong Justine Ajaji, LCIII chairperson of Lii sub-county, the most affected sub-county.
Odong says for instance when they reported about the elephant that killed the eight-month-old pregnant mother at around 4 pm (November), but the lady was killed at around 9 pm from her home by elephants, “We informed the rangers who were at the centre and they never responded, unfortunately, we ended up losing a life”. The woman was killed at her home when she came out to ease herself.
The farmers say some of the outposts created in the community have been closed, hence making accessing the rangers very difficult, in Lutuk Parish, the rangers outpost at Ayago3 has been closed, the nearest point is 6kms away which makes it difficult to report in time.
The residents are now demanding the recruitment of the locals as ‘community scouts’ to help protect farmers as they wait to fence the borderline sub counties continues, Odong adds that the “ government should accept that they have failed to protect, they should recruit our people to protect our crops”.
The Park Authority at Murchison Fall NP says they will immediately embark on recruiting community volunteers after they are done with electric fence installation in some areas. “After advancing new areas with electric fence, we are going to be recruiting more rangers, volunteer scouts to continuously pursue throughout the night”, Mr. Kizza says it will require a big force, “That is what we shall do, immediately, but it will require some labour force to do such work, and it will be the source of employment to our community”.
The need to have a good working relationship with UWA and the community is key in the conservation of Wildlife, much as communities are living in anger with UWA over the damage caused to them by the beasts. Ocitti Tom Oryema chairperson of NDFA says recruiting locals in scouts shall mend good relationships with the community and UWA. “It is my appeal, besides the compensation delays, the relationship between UWA and the community must be good –it requires that more people should be recruited as scouts, they should increase the number of scouts to help flashback the elephants to the park”.
Recently the government of Uganda issued licenses to different oil companies to explore for oil in some protected areas including Murchison Falls National Park. The Park Authority says this has led to a huge human population influx, resulting in an increased risk of poaching. They say though the long-term impact of oil exploration on elephants is not yet clear, it is believed that some exploration activities may influence their behavior and movements.
From wooden electric fencing to Synthetic:
In 2018, Uganda Wildlife Authority launched the first installation of electric fences around national parks in the country in a bid to stop animals from straying into the neigbhouring communities. The project was launched from Kirugu Sub County, Rubirizi district after the residents complained they were losing lives and crops to animals from Queen Elisabeth National Park.
An electric fence is a barrier that uses electric shocks to deter people or other animals from crossing a boundary. The voltage of the shock may have effects ranging from discomfort to death.
For those living along the borderline, their hope lies heavily on electric fencing as the only solution for decades of human-wildlife conflict, where elephants are the main culprits, later in the year 2019, Uganda Wildlife Authority launched the installation of low voltage electric fencing of 30kms in the major human–wildlife conflict hotspots in Nwoya district, but by 2021, UWA had only fenced 23kms.
Nwoya district shares a total of 110 km of the borderline with Uganda’s biggest National Park, Murchison Falls, and the six most affected sub-counties bordering the park are Anaka, Purongo, Purongo Town Council, Got Apwoyo, and Lii.
The residents here say the wait to have borderlines fenced is overdue, which has exposed them to violence being propagated by the straying elephants. Ojok David the LCI chairperson of Lugazi cell says the communities in the area are willing to volunteer their labour to help UWA in fencing the place. “We need an electric fence, and our communities are ready to volunteer their labour in erecting the electric fence, but we have waited for them in vain”.
UWA says the delay to complete the 110kms is due to lack of funds because it is very expensive, according to them, fencing 1km with wooden poles costs Uganda shilling (sh50M) fifty million shilling, which means, it would require sh5.5 billion (five billion five hundred million Uganda shilling) to fence 110kms with wooden poles. It is even expected to cost more since they are migrating to concrete poles.
The setback to this intervention is that then wooden poles have been eaten by termites and some of them are rotten, adding more ‘salt to the healing wounds’, making them to collapse. These electric wooden poles are in the sub-counties of Purongo and Got Apwoyo.
Nwoya district chairman Orach Emmanuel says he warned UWA in 2021 that the poles were not mature, “they were useless because they were weak, it was the waste of government money, and it is unfortunate that the elephants have continued to kill our people.”
In April 2023, the acting MFNP Chief warden Dr. Margaret Driciru said they had fenced 44kms and it was very effective in mitigating elephants crossing into community farmland much as the termites were eating the poles. “Electric fencing has helped us a lot, they are very effective, but we have spent a lot of money in maintaining it.”
Uganda Wildlife Authority has now introduced synthetic poles or concrete poles to replace the wooden poles which are prone to rotting. The Concrete poles shall be installed in the four districts neighbouring Murchison Fall NP, Kiryandongo, Masindi, Buliisa, and Nwoya districts respectively. For the start, it will only cover 101 km in all these districts.
This is expected to provide relief to the people of Nwoya who have already lost hope in UWA, “UWA has informed us that the government has got a sh5.7 billion grant from World Bank to make synthetic poles, and we are happy that Nwoya shall have 31kms fenced with this project”, Orach LCV Nwoya district notes.
Mr. Kizza Fredrick, the Chief Warden of Murchison Falls Conservation Areas confirms the development, “We have procured all the electrical requirements and associate items that would go with it, we are starting with the slashing of the areas where we are going to put the fencing using communities in those affected areas”.
Although he didn’t specify the date, the work is expected to begin either in December or early January 2024 with a reported 1000 synthetic poles already procured and work will start with those in hotspot areas. Mr. Kizza says as UWA, they are committed to solving Human-wildlife conflict.“We want to address the issue of animals going to the community and disorganizing them”.
However, the work will include replacing the wooden poles destroyed by the termites, especially in the sub-counties of Purongo and Got Apwoyo. To the other sub-counties that have not benefited from the project previously, see this as a deliberate delay in reaching their sub-counties.
Odong Justine Ajaji, the chairperson of local council three of Lii sub-county where elephants have turned the sub-county into their new home says. “We are told that the concrete poles will not reach my sub-county, yet this is the headquarters of elephants, people don’t have what to eat, these elephants are breaking into people’s homes, they have been displaced, they are no longer destroying crops only, but attacking and killing People”. Odong believes that the fencing of the place could have provided maximum protection for their gardens.
The small-scale farmers accuse UWA of protecting the commercial farmers at the expense of those who can’t protect their gardens, “people who are in Purongo sub-county are commercial farmers, but we the small-scale farmers are not being prioritized, we are not protected, the electric fences are not in Koch Goma and Lii sub counties”, Ocitti Tom Oryema, the chairperson of Nwoya District farmers Association claims.
However, Mr. Kizza rubbishes this claim as being unfair. “We are for everybody, and we focus more on small-scale farmers because they are the ones that are greatly affected, at the time you find they have left the boundary areas for the big farmers”.
Compensating the elephants’ victims:
The Uganda Wildlife Act 2017, which President Yoweri Museveni assented to on 1 July 2019, provides for the conservation and sustainable management of wildlife and also allows for the compensation of those injured or killed by the wildlife. The new law provides for a compensation fund for persons who suffer bodily injury or are killed or suffer damage to their property by wild animals.
The scheme that begins on 1st October 2022 follows demands from affected communities and leaders for expeditious settling of loss of human life, injuries, and damage of property caused by wild animals outside a protected area as provided for under Section 83 of the Uganda Wildlife Act, 2019.
In August 2022, the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife, and Antiquities announced that the government had allocated more than 900 Million Shillings to compensate victims of human-wildlife conflict. The funds are a cumulative two percent of the total annual revenue being generated by UWA.
In December 2022, the Uganda Wildlife Authority-UWA said they had started hearing compensation claims from persons who have been affected by wildlife.
However, one year down the road, Nwoya residents are yet to receive their first compensation payment. They describe the process of filling out the complaint forms as being too tedious and extra demanding for the illiterate locals.
According compensation scheme, a person can only be paid once the person’s legal representative submits a claim to the wildlife compensation verification committee and the committee shall then verify a claim and submit it to the board together with its recommendation.
The tedious process has made many of the locals whose crops were destroyed by the intrusive elephants not report it. “Every time, they keep asking us to lodge complaints but at the end of it, there is nothing, most farmers can’t afford to follow up the complaints, the process is expensive”, Acellam Geoffrey, one of the affected farmers in Lii sub-county.
The small-scale farmers in the district are already seeking public litigation to compel the government to expedite the process of compensating those who have lost their lives or injured, and those who have lost their property to wildlife in the district.
Ocitti Tom Oryema, the chairperson of Nwoya District Farmers Association (NDFA) says farmers have lost hope, run out of patience, and have become so wild on the government for keeping them waiting in vain for decades.
“The enforcement wing is very weak, they are leaving farmers in suspense, what we need to do is to get a lawyer for farmers to enforce the compensation, we have filled the forms, but we don’t see the result, if there was a court order, it would compel UWA to pay our farmers”, Ocitti adds.
Uganda Wildlife Authority says the delay in compensating people has been partly a result of filling in wrong information by the applicants which makes the work of the verification committee ineffective.
Mr. Kizza Fredrick, Murchison Falls Conservation Areas Chief Warden urges people to always give correct information so that they don’t delay in processing of the fund.
“At times, people give wrong information, some people -their National Identify card credentials are not matching what is in the compensation forms, that delays payment, we are going to make sure that people are compensated, right now some people are going to be compensated”, Mr. Kizz notes.
The exact number of people who have applied for the compensation from Nwoya district is not clear as the wait to get compensated continues.
Apart from boosting the tourism sector in Uganda, as the largest of all land mammals, African elephants play an important role in balancing natural ecosystems. They trample forests and dense grasslands, making room for smaller species to co-exist.
This special report was done with support from the Agroecology School for Journalists and Communicators and Eastern and Southern Africa Small-scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) Uganda
