KAMPALA, Dec1, 2007 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- By 2010 parts of eastern Uganda will have no enough land available for the number of peasants on it and the land crisis will gradually spread to the rest of the country by 2022, according to a new report released recently by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA).
The "State of the Environment Report for Uganda 2006-2007" attributes the crisis to high population growth. According to the World Population Data Sheet released this month, Uganda is going to have the world's biggest population increase in the next four decades.
Uganda's population, estimated at 28.4 million in mid 2007, will grow to 55.9 million by 2025 and further to 117 million by 2050.
This represents a 310 percent increase between 2007 and 2050, just the period it takes today's university students to reach retirement age.
The head of advocacy at the population secretariat Hannington Burunde said that whereas most women want to limit the number of children they produce, only one fifth practice birth control.
"Most women produce at an early age, and by the time they reach menopause they have already produced several children," he said. " Each woman in Uganda on average produces seven children."
Because of the rapid population growth, Uganda's land is quickly losing fertility, said Goretti Kitutu, an environmental systems analyst with the NEMA, who was quoted by state-owned New Vision on Saturday.
In most of the highly populated areas, farmers no longer have the luxury of allowing part of their land to rest and become fertile again. They end up working the same plot year in year out.
They cut trees, encroach on reserve land such as forests and cultivate wetlands up to river banks.
Others, especially the youth, migrate to urban areas where they create a workforce of unskilled labor and contribute to the growth of slums.
On the mountain slopes, this population pressure has already caused an increase in landslides. Yet, most of the locals think landslides are accidental. "They have failed to see the relationship between their activities and the landslides," said Richard Matanda, the warden in charge of conservation at Mt. Elgon National Park.
As the population grows bigger, the environmental resources such as firewood and water are becoming scarce. Global warming is likely to make this worse, according to Augustine Masereka, the chief warden of Mt. Elgon National Park.
According to the NEMA report, some of the effects of climate change such as floods, droughts and recession of water bodies have already been seen in Uganda.
Given that land scarcity is an emerging threat as the population of the country grows and as productivity declines, it is important to introduce new ways of using land, said Aryamanya Mugisha, the executive director of NEMA.
Farmers should be taught how to produce food on a small piece of land, while maintaining the fertility. This could include practices like strip cropping and terracing, said Mugisha.
In order to control the rapid population growth, said Mugisha, the government should consider training and supporting rural families to limit child birth.
He also called for land policy reforms to take into consideration the growing population pressure.