NGO WORK

Destroying Bugoma will block wildlife migration corridor

Published

5 years ago

October 5, 2020

As the forest thinned, Elephants that used to move back and forth from Queen Elizabeth National Park stopped passing through Bugoma; next will be the chimpanzees if the forest is wiped out.

To appreciate the Save Bugoma Forest campaign , one needs to get its history to know that it is gradually diminishing. Animals are losing their habitat as precious species of trees are felled. Rare bird species have been displaced as the flora and fauna is destroyed. A Vision Group team was on the ground two weeks ago and continues to report what was discovered.

There is infrastructure (road) for wild animals like elephants moving between Queen Elizabeth National Park and Murchison Falls National Park. The migratory corridor is the infrastructure (road) for wild animals like elephants moving between Queen’s Elizabeth National Park and Murchison Falls National Park. It has existed for centuries. But now the remaining part of it between Bugoma and Budongo forests is being destroyed.

To appreciate the Save Bugoma campaign one needs to get the forest’s history to see it is being depleted. Consequently, animals are losing their habitat, precious species of trees are felled and rare bird species displaced.

The cutting the forest is also impacting on the environs, triggering climate change. As the Vision Group team moved in the Kisinde sector of the forest near Kabwoya in Kikuube district, dry leaves on the ground made cracking sound, betraying the journalists’ presence.

To avoid being detected by charcoal burners, members of the team had to stealthily walk for a few steps, stop look around before taking the next steps. The smell of burning charcoal wafted through the forest and the mowing sound of power saws echoed deeper in the forest.

The team came across logs left behind by loggers. Probably, they were being prepared for charcoal burning or use as timber. There were also several sites showing evidence of charcoal burning with mounds of ash left after the perpetrators harvesting their loot. There were no chimpanzees in sight yet this is their home.

Back in time, Kyejonjo, which is now a district, was named after elephants that used to roam in parts of western Uganda from Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese district to Bugoma forest in Hoima and Kikuube districts. Moses Adyeri, a resident, says Kyejonjo means ‘a passage for elephants.’

“The elephants do not come to Kyejonjo anymore because it has become a town,” he says, adding that they have been scared away by human activity.

The noise caused by cars prevents some birds and marsh-nesting birds from locating mates and undermines the rearing of young ones.

Sam Mwandah, the executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), says elephants used to move back and forth from Queen Elizabeth National Park through Kibaale to Kyejonjo, which used to have a chain of forests. The elephants would cross into Kagombe and other forest reserves in Bugoma.

Another migratory corridor from Semliki National Park in the western arm of the East African Rift Valley (Albertine Rift) was previously connected to Bugoma. This was a meeting place for elephants and other large mammals, including chimpanzees. As charcoal burning, expansive farmland and human settlement take a toll on the environment, the migratory corridors are shrinking and becoming undesirable routes for animals.

It is going to get worse as Bugoma gets cut down to plant sugarcane. First, the elephants have been blocked as the forest thinned over the years; next will be the chimpanzees if the forest is wiped out.

Yafesi Kaahwa, a resident of Kabwoya sub-county in Kikuube district, says Bugoma means a place where animals are highly concentrated. From Bugoma, wild animals used to continue moving to Budongo Forest Reserve, which is about 60km away.

The elephants and chimps would continue to Murchison Falls National Park, which is Uganda’s largest protected area. In most cases, big mammals, including the elephants, would make the return journey to Budongo, Bugoma, Kagombe and Kyejonjo to Kibaale and Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Unfortunately, Mwandha says, the migratory corridors have been blocked. Mwandha says this poses danger to wildlife because when animals are cut off from larger habitats, inbreeding sets in.

With the corridors blocked, small populations of chimps cannot easily move to the larger forests such as Bugoma, where their relatives stay. The constriction also results in the “unwelcome stay of the chimps in the villages” sparking off conflicts between the chimps and the human population.

The chimps that are stuck in the forests are facing two threats. Firstly, the chimps have to turn to farmland and fruits on private land for food. Secondly, the chimps in smaller communities of less than 200 could suffer from inbreeding and become wiped out in case of a disease outbreak.

HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICTS

As a result of chimps foraging on private land, conflicts with people have escalated, Kasozi Atuhura, the conservation programme officer under Chimpanzee Trust in Hoima, says.

“We have to create awareness among the local communities so we understand chimp behaviour in order to reduce conflicts and fatalities that could occur as a result of attacks,” Atuhura tells the Vision Group team.

He says they are encouraging communities to grow crops that are not palatable to chimpanzees. The crops being promoted include Irish potatoes and soya beans.

Sadly, Atuhura says, the chimps are making attempts to eat the new crops and in some areas, Irish and soya beans have failed to bail out the farmers. An adult chimp requires a minimum of 2sq.km of forest to get enough food, Peter Apell, who works with the Jane Goodall Institute, which promotes understanding and protection of great apes, says.

THREAT OF INBREEDING

Atuhura says the restricted movement of chimps is leading to a slow genetic death. This means chimps mate with their close relatives and end up producing weak offspring. The forest patches that used to shelter the big mammals during their migrations have been wiped out of the landscape.

“It is only a few chimps that make an attempt to use them and in many cases, they do not make it to Bugoma,” Atuhura says. Stephen Nyakojo, a resident of Kabwoya, says the last elephant in the migratory corridor was seen in the 1970s.

“Our parents were fearful of the elephants and used to escort us to the crossing points of the animals,” Nyakojo says.

In Kibaale district, the last attempts by elephants to migrate through parts of Muhoro were in 1978, Yusuf Kasumba, a resident of Muhoro, says. “The elephants attempted to cross from Kyejonjo but they could not proceed as they lost their way, probably because of the human settlements,” he says.

DISAPPEARING WILDLIFE ROAD

In addition, there was an arm of the migratory corridor that was linking Semliki via Bugoma to Budongo, according to Simon Nampindo, the director of the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society in Uganda.

This is what government agencies, including UWA and NGOs, Wildlife Conservation Society, Jane Goodall Institute, Flora and Fauna International and Chimpanzee Trust are trying to restore.

The land where the migratory corridors were previously sitting belongs to individuals and not the Government. This means that farmers have to be compensated to leave the land for the animals or they have to be persuaded to live with the wild animals.

Apart from unsustainable agriculture and charcoal burning, the forests are being threatened by illegal extraction of timber and mining.

**New Vision

NGO WORK

Violations against Kenya’s indigenous Ogiek condemned yet again by African Court

Published

2 weeks ago

January 13, 2026

witnessradio.org

Minority Rights Group welcomes today’s decision by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the case of Ogiek people v. Government of Kenya. The decision reiterates previous findings of more than a decade of unremedied violations against the indigenous Ogiek people, centred on forced evictions from their ancestral lands in the Mau forest.

The Court showed clear impatience concerning Kenya’s failure to implement two landmark rulings in favour of the indigenous Ogiek people: in a 2017 judgment, that their human rights had been violated by Kenya’s denial of access to their land, and in a 2022 judgment, which ordered Kenya to pay nearly 160 million Kenyan shillings (about 1.3 million USD) in compensation and to restitute their ancestral lands, enabling them to enjoy the human rights that have been denied them.

Despite tireless activism from the community and the historic nature of both judgments, Kenya has not implemented any part of either decision. The community remains socioeconomically marginalized as a result of their eviction and dispossession. Evictions have continued, notably in 2023 with 700 community members made homeless and their property destroyed, and in 2020 evicting about 600, destroying their homes in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Daniel Kobei, Executive Director of the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program stated, ‘We have been at the African Court six times to fight for our rights to live on our lands as an indigenous people – rights which our government has denied us and continues to violate, compounding our plights and marginalization, despite clear orders from the African Court for our government to remedy the violations. This is the seventh time, and we were hopeful that the Court would be more strict to the government of Kenya in ensuring that a workable roadmap be followed in implementation of the two judgments.’

*Image: The Ogiek delegation outside the African Court after the delivery of the decision. 4 December 2025.*

Kenya has repeatedly justified the eviction of Ogiek as necessary for conservation, although the forest has seen significant harm since evictions began. Many in the community see a connection between their eviction and Kenya’s participation in lucrative carbon credit schemes.

‘The Court’s decision underscores the importance of timely and full implementation of measures imposed on a state which has been found to be in breach of their internationally agreed obligations. Kenya must now repay its debt to the indigenous Ogiek by restituting their land and making reparations, among other remedies ordered by the Court’, said Samuel Ade Ndasi, African Union Advocacy and Litigation Officer at Minority Rights Group.

The decision states, ‘the court orders the respondent state to immediately take all necessary steps, be they legislative or administrative or otherwise, to remedy all the violations established in the judgment on merits.’ The court also reaffirmed that no state can invoke domestic laws to justifiy a breach of international obligations.

Both of the original judgments were historic precedents, breaking new ground on the issue of restitution and compensation for collective violations experienced by indigenous peoples and confirming the vital role of indigenous peoples in safeguarding ecosystems, that states must respect and protect their land rights, that lands appropriated from them in the name of conservation without free, prior and informed consent must be returned, and their right to be the ultimate decision makers about what happens on their lands. Today’s decision adds to this tally of precedents as it is the first decision of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights concerning the record of a state in implementing a binding decision.

The case

In October 2009, the Kenyan government, through the Kenya Forestry Service, issued a 30-day eviction notice to the Ogiek and other settlers of the Mau Forest, demanding that they leave the forest. Concerned that this was a perpetuation of the historical land injustices already suffered, and having failed to resolve these injustices through repeated national litigation and advocacy efforts, the Ogiek decided to lodge a case against their government before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights with the assistance of Minority Rights Group, the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program and the Centre for Minority Rights Development. The African Commission issued interim measures, which were flouted by the Government of Kenya and thereafter referred the case to the African Court based on the complementarity relationship between the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and on the grounds that there was evidence of serious or massive human rights violations.

On 26 May 2017, after years of litigation, a failed attempt at amicable settlement and an oral hearing on the merits, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights rendered a merits judgment in favour of the Ogiek people. It held that the government had violated the Ogiek’s rights to communal ownership of their ancestral lands, to culture, development and use of natural resources, as well as to be free from discrimination and practise their religion or belief. On 23 June 2022, the Court rejected Kenya’s objections and set out the reparations owed for the violations established in the 2017 judgment.

Source: minorityrights.org

NGO WORK

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Published

2 months ago

November 13, 2025

witnessradio.org

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights reveals how the Bank is appropriating climate commitments made at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to justify its multibillion-dollar initiative to “formalize” land tenure across the Global South. While the Bank claims that it is necessary “to access land for climate action,” Climatewash uncovers that its true aim is to open lands to agribusiness, mining of “transition minerals,” and false solutions like carbon credits – fueling dispossession and environmental destruction. Alongside plans to spend US$10 billion on land programs, the World Bank has also pledged to double its agribusiness investments to US$9 billion annually by 2030.

This report details how the Bank’s land programs and policy prescriptions to governments dismantle collective land tenure systems and promote individual titling and land markets as the norm, paving the way for private investment and corporate takeover. These reforms, often financed through loans taken by governments, force countries into debt while pushing a “structural transformation” that displaces smallholder farmers, undermines food sovereignty, and prioritizes industrial agriculture and extractive industries.

Drawing on a thorough analysis of World Bank programs from around the world, including case studies from Indonesia, Malawi, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Argentina, Climatewash documents how the Bank’s interventions are already displacing communities and entrenching land inequality. The report debunks the Bank’s climate action rhetoric. It details how the Bank’s efforts to consolidate land for industrial agriculture, mining, and carbon offsetting directly contradict the recommendations of the IPCC, which emphasizes the protection of lands from conversion and overexploitation and promotes practices such as agroecology as crucial climate solutions.

Read full report: Climatewash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Source: The Oakland Institute

NGO WORK

Africa’s Land Is Not Empty: New Report Debunks the Myth of “Unused Land” and Calls for a Just Future for the Continent’s Farmland

Published

2 months ago

November 13, 2025

witnessradio.org

A new report challenges one of the most persistent and harmful myths shaping Africa’s development agenda — the idea that the continent holds vast expanses of “unused” or “underutilised” land waiting to be transformed into industrial farms or carbon markets.

Titled Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025), the study exposes how this colonial-era narrative continues to justify large-scale land acquisitions, displacements, and ecological destruction in the name of progress.

Drawing on extensive literature reviews, satellite data, and interviews with farmers in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the report systematically dismantles five false assumptions that underpin the “land abundance” narrative:

That Africa has vast quantities of unused arable land available for cultivation
That modern technology can solve Africa’s food crisis
That smallholder farmers are unproductive and incapable of feeding the continent
That markets and higher yields automatically improve food access and nutrition
That industrial agriculture will generate millions of decent jobs

Each of these claims, the report finds, is deeply flawed. Much of the land labelled as “vacant” is, in reality, used for grazing, shifting cultivation, foraging, or sacred and ecological purposes. These multifunctional landscapes sustain millions of people and are far from empty.

The study also shows that Africa’s food systems are already dominated by small-scale farmers, who produce up to 80% of the continent’s food on 80% of its farmland. Rather than being inefficient, their agroecological practices are more resilient, locally adapted, and socially rooted than the industrial models promoted by external donors and corporations.

Meanwhile, the promise that industrial agriculture will lift millions out of poverty has not materialised. Mechanisation and land consolidation have displaced labour, while dependency on imported seeds and fertilisers has trapped farmers in cycles of debt and dependency.

A Continent Under Pressure

Beyond these myths, the report reveals a growing land squeeze as multiple global agendas compete for Africa’s territory: the expansion of mining for critical minerals, large-scale carbon-offset schemes, deforestation for timber and commodities, rapid urbanisation, and population growth.

Between 2010 and 2020, Africa lost more than 3.9 million hectares of forest annually — the highest deforestation rate in the world. Grasslands, vital carbon sinks and grazing ecosystems, are disappearing at similar speed.

Powerful actors — from African governments and Gulf states to Chinese investors, multinational agribusinesses, and climate-finance institutions — are driving this race for land through opaque deals that sideline local communities and ignore customary tenure rights.

A Call for a New Vision

The report calls for a radical shift away from high-tech, market-driven, land-intensive models toward people-centred, ecologically grounded alternatives. Its key policy recommendations include:

Promoting agroecology as a pathway for food sovereignty, ecological regeneration, and rural livelihoods.
Reducing pressure on land by improving agroecological productivity, cutting food waste, and prioritising equitable distribution.
Rejecting carbon market schemes that commodify land and displace communities.
Legally recognising customary land rights, particularly for women and Indigenous peoples.
Upholding the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all land-based investments.

This report makes it clear: Africa’s land is not “empty” — it is lived on, worked on, and cared for. The future of African land must not be dictated by global capital or outdated development theories, but shaped by the people who depend on it.