dc.description.abstract | For the last two decades, Uganda has invested heavily in developing systems, procedure and practices for sound Wetland conservation. However management of wetland resources located on both public and private land often involves a perceived conflict between social and private interests, on private land especially, landowners usually cannot benefit economically from keeping wetlands on site unless they convert them to alternative uses such as agricultural crops. In order to avoid further degradation and ensure the various environmental benefits wetlands provide there is need for government intervention by creating more awareness, delivering effective policies/regulations and enforcement.
This thesis investigates wetland management, with grater emphasis on policies and regulation application in Jinja and Iganga district where many wetlands have been converted to alternative use. Questionnaires were developed and designed to collect data on 181 wetland stakeholders regarding demographic features, land ownership, related activities in wetlands, nature of restrictions on wetland use, knowledge on wetlands, causes of wetland degradation and sources of Environmental information.
Primary Information was obtained from Environmental officers, District planners, Environment Committees, local council officials at the grassroots and other relevant Government departments regarding wetland management and conservation. The data obtained were cleaned and analyzed using SPSS a computer software package.
The demographic features of the study sample were representative of the Uganda per-urban and rural society. Its inhabitants are both literate and illiterate and have a high dependency ratio. The dissemination of wetland information was very inadequate. Farmers contributed greatly to the wetland degradation in areas of study due to lack of awareness of the wetland related policies and regulations. Farmers displayed poor management practices in wetland areas and despite the conversion of the wetlands many of the inhabitants were still very poor.
Successful application of wetland related policies and regulations will depend on future creation of awareness to the wetland users, this is in regard to the available policies and regulations, facilitating wetland officers and law enforcers, rehabilitating degraded wetlands introducing farmers to best practices in wetlands and fully involving wetland users especially farmers in wetland management and conservation. | en_US |