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Destroying Bugoma will block wildlife migration corridor

Published

6 years ago

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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

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NGO WORK

The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South

Published

1 week ago

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August 4, 2026

By

By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.

We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.

Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.

Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.

And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.

Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com

Source: oaklandinstitute.org/

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NGO WORK

EU: IPI welcomes action against 14 states over Anti-SLAPP Directive delays

Published

2 weeks ago

on

July 27, 2026

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EU states must introduce robust measures to protect journalists and media from vexatious litigation

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomes the infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 14 EU Member States over their inaction or delays in transposing the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The countries included are Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

The EU infringement proceedings were initiated on 15 July, with letters of formal notice sent to these Member States for failing to notify about progress made in implementing the Directive. States now have two months to respond and update about measures taken or could eventually face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

The Anti-SLAPP Directive introduced EU-wide rules which protect journalists and civil society actors from manifestly unfounded or abusive civil proceedings with cross-border implications, including early dismissal tools and remedies for targets of SLAPPs. It was adopted in April 2024 and the transposition deadline was 7 May 2026.

Monitoring by IPI shows that while in some of the countries identified, such as Greece and Spain, steps have been taken to prepare for the transposition and bills are actively in development and reportedly close to being presented to or adopted by parliament.

In others such as Bulgaria and Portugal, initial work done to develop legislation has been delayed by institutional changes, changes in governments or political instability, though transposition work remains ongoing.

In other states, such as Italy and Hungary, little to no measurable progress has yet been made on transposition. However, with the new Tisza government in Hungary driving forward media freedom reforms, there is hope the new administration will introduce initial anti-SLAPP measures in the next legislative package identified for the autumn.

While Ireland has been actively working to tackle SLAPPs through legal reforms, and passed the Defamation Bill in 2024, further legislation is required to fully transpose the Anti-SLAPP Directive during its Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Although these 14 countries have been identified in the EU action, monitoring and analyses show that the overall picture for implementation of the Directive across the EU remains fragmented and uneven.

According to the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, almost all EU Member States missed the May 2026 transposition deadline, with only a handful fully implementing on time.

IPI notes that even in those Member States where the Directive was implemented, such as Malta, these reforms only included minimum standards protecting against cross-border cases, and failed to include measures to safeguard against domestic SLAPPs.

In the wake of the EU’s opening of initial infringement action, IPI renews our call – made previously with Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners – for Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes in protecting against SLAPPs. This includes the 14 countries identified by the EU Commission and those in which reforms have been presented but not yet adopted.

Crucially, legislative reforms should both fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and introduce the substantive and procedural safeguards set out in the EU and Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs.

A model here should be Poland, where last month the President approved a law which covers both domestic and cross-border SLAPPs, ensuring implementation of both EU Directive and Council of Europe Recommendation.

Member States which continue to delay or fail to transpose the directive should face legal action from the Commission, which must use all tools at its disposal to help safeguard media freedom across the bloc.

IPI, which has advocated at the EU and national level for measures to protect journalists and media from SLAPPs, will continue to monitor implementation in collaboration with European partners, including through MFRR media freedom missions.

Source: ipi.media/

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NGO WORK

No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone

Published

3 weeks ago

on

July 20, 2026

By

The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.

As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.

Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!

Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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