Report on “Sub-County councils to debate and discuss about "by-laws" on environmental protection”

Hello, this is Global Bridge Network (GBN)!

Today, we continue reporting on ‘Environmental Protection through Expanding Lemon grass growing and Education in Uganda’.

Last time, we had updated about the “Sub-County dialogue meetings based onovercoming environmental degradation” which were implemented on Sep 2017.

This time, we carried out council debates to discuss the possible by-laws of environmental protection in the 4 sub counties in Oct 2017.

It seemed to be a difficult concept to understand but using the theme, “there are laws and regulations governing environmental protection, so let’s try to promote them”, we tried to awaken the sub-county leaders onto their own laws and regulation and as well encouraged them to promote them.

Furthermore, last time we focused on dialogue on environmental degradation, while this time we focused on a debate concerning by-laws of environmental protection.

Chairman Kibalinga sub-county council

These debates were attended by a total of 160 participants from 4 sub-counties such as Kibalinga, Nabingoola, Kigando and Kasambya which were the same sub-counties last time. Each council was represented by a number of 40 participants.

The Uganda National environment Act was enacted in1995 as the frame work law on environmental sustainable management and there are respective laws and regulations in each sub-county. However, continual communities encroaching wetlands causes environmental degradation and therefore, even if the laws and regulations exist, it is meaningless if there is no execution. Thus, firstly the communities should be aware of these laws that prohibit farming in wetlands hence creating a framework of executing of the laws and regulations.

説明を追加Environmental degradation through wetland land-filling

There were also some reactions from the participants during the debates.

•   The sub-county as well as district leaders should continue sensitizing the general population about the dangers of degrading wetlands.
•     The sub-county technical leaders were also encouraged to implement and enforce the laws governing the environment as stipulated in the National environment Act of 1995.
•    The sub-county environmental committees were advised to elevate on their environmental monitoring skills. This would ensure that no harmful human activities are done in wetlands.

These debates became good opportunities for sub-county leaders to raise their awareness in regards to enforcing laws and regulations of by-laws of environmental protection.

You can find the details in the reports below,

5. Report on sub county council debates on by laws

We will continue encouraging and as well support sub-county leaders to actively engage in environmental protection by themselves.

*This project is supported by Japan Fund for Global Environment of the Environmental Restoration (JFGE) and by Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency (ERCA)

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