Was Anai Saved by a Wolf?
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| Photo Credit: ironage.info |
Whether their choice was right or wrong, there was no better judge than time. The result of Anai's choice is out: the environment has been greatly degraded, the area is getting arid, the swamps have dried up, even water for making bricks is not there and families are so disgruntled as poverty and hunger rage in Anai even more.
Written by Abet Tonny
''With no single food grain in the house, I had been so troubled but I have eventually stopped worrying. I have come to agree with Jesus that every new day caters for itself. But I didn't want to live in uncertainty like this. The rain has consistently failed our crops here. Last year we harvested no single grain, the drought could not allow and there is hardly any money to purchase food today either,'' Cylvia, a mother of 10 narrates as she walks me along with a scary wide and deep spread of hole where the soil is quarried to make bricks.
The holes are neck-height in-depth when you jump inside and roughly 10 square meters wide. This brick making site is where Cylvia along with 3 families of her married sons find refuge when crops fail. They go making bricks for sale. Sylvia's brick-making site is adjacent to her younger son's grass thatched house and a thin road leading to a spring well negotiates along.
Anai, a prominent community in Lira district found in the northern part of Uganda continues to portray very abnormal social and economic characteristics. With a small population of 12653 as of the year 2018, Anai has for the last two (2) decades remained the top producer of cured bricks supplying the springing city of Lira.
According to Sylvia, brick-making is the major source of livelihood in Anai introduced around 1991 when the rain volumes and patterns in the area started reducing and becoming unpredictable respectively. Crops started failing and hunger became more rampant. However, the available data and information from key informants seem to point that wide embrace of brick-making has contributed to a phenomenal increase in rates of crime, drug abuse, school dropout and teenage pregnancy, illiteracy, domestic violence and hunger in the community of Anai.
These issues started emerging in the last 15 years -roughly 5 years since the embrace of brick-making as a substitute for farming. According to key informants, Anai has found itself wretched since the commence of brick-making and the locals are helpless as children remain illiterate and food insecurity threaten the future of Anai. The complexity in Anai is probably resulting from a bad climate change adaptation strategy.
As a science writer based in Lira district, the dire situation moved me to design a special investigation focusing on why Anai shows these socio-economic disparities well knowing a number of other communities across Sub-Saharan Africa have found themselves entangled in Anai's kind of situation - a wrong climate change adaptation strategy. In designing this investigation, the important question was, could be embracing brick-making as major source of livelihood be causing more harms to
Anai and if yes, is there a way out? The 12-month slow-paced investigation focusing on five (5) parameters: state of tree cover in Anai, the difference in rainfall (pattern/volume) in Anai, state of soil (fertility/erosion), the extent of wetland reclamation and difference in crop yield in Anai. The investigation shall involve interactions with local people, policymakers, environmentalists and climatologists. The other bit will entail work with researchers to perform laboratory studies depending on the availability of funds. The investigation was launched in October 2018 and this is the first release.
''This is far better than farming where we are always getting no yield because the rain is very unpredictable," Okello narrates as he clears the brick-making site. As the discussion gets more interesting, Okello reveals that most locals can't raise the $100 investment so families keep working for 'local investors' like him with the locals earning $10 to $20 monthly ($0.3 to $0.7 daily).
This daily earning can at best secure only one meal a day. Not mentioning the health, education and clothing needs of the family. This may partly explain why there is a high rate of school dropout -parents have no money to pay school fees as feeding alone is big trouble. When I asked Okello about the likely danger of his work to his surrounding, Okello had this spirited answer, "Yes I think there could be dangers like deforestation associated with need for firewood to cure the bricks and soil loss just like the industries in Lira town like Beb Wine and Mukwano are also causing dangers to the environment by releasing toxic wastes to the river.
You can't tell me to go farming to save the environment well knowing the rain will fail me and I will turn into a thief. Let the government bring us irrigation and we shall change. In fact, this brick-making work is harder than farming but we do it because it is more secure."
Close to 10% of soil in Anai has been sold off in form of bricks. At least 60% of tree cover has been lost in a quest to remain competitive in producing cured bricks. Generally viewing, the mature trees make up less than 2% of the remaining trees in Anai.
Mature trees are the most preferred in curing bricks. Deforestation is not a unique unfolding in Uganda, in September 2018, Uganda National Forestry Authority reported that Uganda has lost over 3,000,000 hectares of forest cover in 25 years only. The lack of tree cover means wind and fast running rainwater can carry away the soil. The soil surface runoff speed of rainwater remains unchecked.
The unchecked speed of running water causes a huge volume of topsoil rich in organic matter and nutrients to be washed away leaving the farmers with soil that is not fertile. The massive soil loss in brick-making will also mean the next breed of young people settling in Anai and interested in farming have nowhere to start from. The deep and wide holes may take close to 100 years to fill up with arable soil. This is according to Opio James, an environmentalist based in Lira.
The morning of December 4th, 2018 found me in Anai. It is a period when schools are ongoing and am in the western part of Anai. It rained here 2 days ago but the soil is consistently dry. Few young trees can be seen distances apart, it's has been a full hour riding along swamps but I have not yet seen unreclaimed wetland. Dried stems of rice from the previous season are common in all swamps revealing the swamps are being reclaimed to grow rice. Few sugarcane plants can also be seen in other reclaimed swamps.
There are also several brick-making sites per home and other huge communal ones with women and young children toiling in making bricks. Some few adult males either standingby the brick-making sites or sunbathing at the site.
Most of the brick-making holes are around waist-height to neck-height deep. It is 8:30 a.m in Anai, a number of youthful and adult males can also be seen squatting along the main road and others seated in trading centers either playing cards or sipping alcohol in small-white sachets. ''They are awaiting trucks that would show up over the day to ferry fired bricks to Lira town,'' Sam, a local at a trading center in Anai informs me as if worried I was a policeman coming for idlers.
''Life has greatly changed here over time, in the 1980s there was no brick-making here and everyone was farming. The soils were fertile and the harvests were very good. But the rains started failing us coupled with soil infertility. It was around the same time people started making bricks. More people started abandoning farming due to poor yields in preference for brick-making,'' Cylvia seated on a papyrus mat under her mango tree narrates to me.
Cylvia's husband reclaimed some portion of wetland 5 years ago to grow sugarcane and rice. ''It is the sugarcane and rice from wetland that enabled us build this small iron sheet-roofed house,' says Cylvia. Cylvia has a small iron sheet-roofed house with a bedroom and sitting room. I sat wondering how the small house fits her 6 children except for the relief the other 4 children are adults in their own grass thatched houses.
Cylvia along with her husband do brick-making as well as engage in farming. Some of her garden land is located upland but she prefers the wetland garden. However, a wrangle had emerged last year on the ownership of the wetland and her family lost the entire garden.
Cylvia thinks brick-making caused rain shortage and soil infertility due to deforestation but she does not believe wetland reclamation has impact on environment. According to another brivk-maker, Opio, sometimes it is strange that it rains around Lira University -just 3 kilometers from Anai and not a single rain drop falls in Anai. Cylvia amd Opio believe brick-making is not sustainable but they see no way out either.
So far, 3 months have passed and the investigation is getting more interesting. Anai remains one of the hotspots for impacts of climate change and environmental degradation.
Enormous deforestation and wetland reclamation top in the concerns. How the deforestation and wetland reclamation directly result in the high reduction in rainfall in Anai is one of the major areas where locals and policymakers are interested in understanding. Remembering that before brick-making started in this area, Anai had already started experiencing a reduction in rainfall.
The next phase of our investigation shall involve interviewing a number of climatologists and environmentalists as well ad sharing some credible research findings by top scientists. Was brick-making a Wolf and not Saviour to Anai's situation of reduced volume of rainfall? The next release shall be in July 2019.
About the Author:
Abet Tonny is a Freelance Science Writer from life science background graduating in 2016 from Makerere University. He has professional training from CABI/SCIENCE AND DEVELOPMENT NETWORK and Amref Health Africa in investigative reporting of scientific issues. He guest writes for GLOFORD Uganda and his blog SCIENCE JAF. He is also a passionate farmer and a good will ambassador of Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) in Lira district. Email:tonnyabet@gmail.com
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