Nwoya: Land saga stalls UWA’s shs.110m ‘elephant project’

Residents of Lagaji village, Purongo sub-county in Nwoya district are in battles with Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) on whose land should the 7 kilometers elephant trenches be excavated.

Okot Ben, the Purongo sub-county LC3 chairperson, in an interview with our reporter says the community of the affected areas of Lagaji and Lawaja where elephants terrorise them, their crop gardens have rejected the project.

The elephants emerge from Murchison national game park, taking free walks into nearby homes.

“The communities from the two villages (above) have refuted the project because Uganda Wildlife Authority want to dig the 7 kilometers trenches on people’s land but not on park’s land, of which community have highly refuted it,” Okot tells our reporter.

Lubangakene Kenneth, the project coordinator admitted that the project has been rejected by community over land, saying that “as Uganda Wildlife Authority we don’t allow any activity within the park since it’s the community project.”

Lubangakene adds that the project was to be done on community land but not on park land.

Locals are further worried because out of over 110 millions shillings allocated by UWA, no single coin is for land compensation.

He, however added that as “Uganda Wildlife Authority we are going to shift away the project to other area which have the same problems of animal-human-conflicts surrounding the park.”

The trenches was to stop elephants from arriving into people’s gardens.

The project was meant to start last year, and about Uganda shillings 110 millions was earmarked for it.