The impacts of wastes on Nyaruteme wetland in Ntungamo district and part of Bushenyi district.

Abstract

In the study the impacts of the wastes dumped in Nyaruteme wetland in Ntungamo district and some parts of Bushenyi where considered covering six neighboring villages with objectives of assess the impacts of waste dumping on Nyaruteme wetland, identifying wastes dumped into the swamp, activities done in the wetland and impacts of dumping wastes into the wetland, data was obtained through questionnaire interviews, observations and reference to available information and analyzed with stastical packages. The study revealed that there is high level of dumping wastes into the wetland due to reconstruction road, growing population, ignorance of people about the dangers of waste in the wetland, no costs imposed on people who dump wastes nearness of the wetland to the road, lack of strict laws governing the area and no specific gazetted dumping wastes and activities like crop growing, cattle keeping, brick making, fishing, weaving activities, and urbanization are major driving forces land degradation increased levels of soil erosion, there are low levels of responses to Nyaruteme degradation and limited awareness towards sustainable use and management of the wetland resources, gender and age are relevant factors in determining. the nature of activities carried out in wetlands with male and age group of 19-25 taking a great percentage of participants Activities in wetlands are independent of whether one owns land or not. Based on the study, the following recommendations were made; need to educate people about dangers resulting from dumping wastes into the wetland, establishing waste collection points, encouraging people to carry out community works, need to sensitize and change attitude of the community towards environment and natural resources, consider gender equality in use and management of-natural resources to avoid gender conflicts.