One of several hillside quarries along Kabaare-Bunyonyi Road. 

Random hillside holes in Uganda. The work of rock-splitters whose excavations ignore scientific laws. Men, women, and children earn a pittance after weeks of high-risk hard labour with hammers and other basic tools. Hillside quarrying is a danger to these workers, to road users, and to the environment. It is a known cause of death when the landslides strike. 

One would have thought that this unregulated activity would have been high on the agenda of our leaders and policy makers. Ruling party politicians and their opponents are united in their silence about this dangerous activity. Environmental dangers seem to matter only when they become killers, but even then, they seem to have a flitting impact on our awareness. 

The uglification of hillsides because of quarrying has become part of our lives. The distress I felt when I first encountered a single hillside excavation along the Kabaare-Bunyonyi road many years ago has been replaced by a resigned acceptance of these awful scars that provide survival opportunities for people in need. 

If the cosmetic impact on the topography was the only problem with these hillside quarries, one would not say much about it. It is the significant negative environmental impacts that invite urgent searches for solutions. A recent study by Remigio Turyahabwe, Joyfred Asaba, Andrew Mulabbi, and Christopher Osuna in Tororo District showed that stone quarrying caused land ecosystem degradation, deterioration of water quality, scenery deformation, drying up of wells and boreholes, cave and sinkhole formation, and noise and air pollution. 

The study, which was published in the East African Journal of Environment and Natural Resources, found a significant rate of accidents at quarry sites, including deaths of workers, child labour and school dropout, escalation of HIV prevalence, and food insecurity because of reduced agricultural work in the affected communities.

Yet the stone quarrying industry also offered benefits, including creation of new habitats, employment opportunities, standard of living enhancement, revenue generation for the local government, emergence of new social amenities, and opportunities for small scale trade. 

The demand for stone products in Uganda is likely to remain high. So, the stone quarrying industry is not going to be legislated out of existence. What is urgently required is a science-based consideration of alternatives that offer win-win outcomes for the citizens and the environment. 

Perhaps more dangerous than the hillside quarries, is the indiscriminate assault on lakes and rivers by sand miners. The global demand for sand, appropriately nicknamed “the new gold”, is only second to that for water. Sand extraction threatens the physical and biological environment in a way that appears to be underappreciated or ignored by Uganda’s leaders across the political spectrum. How else to explain the lack of enforcement of regulations enshrined in the National Environment Act of 2019 and the Mining and Minerals Act of 2022? 

I am yet to hear a very detailed analysis and proposed solutions for this looming disaster, from any of the major political leaders or the prospective candidates for parliament in my four constituencies of Rukiga County, Kabaare Municipality, Ndorwa East, and Ndorwa West in Kigyezi.  

One understands how conflict of interests clashes with the need to protect our environment and the interests of future generations. Yet ignoring this ticking time bomb is akin to one ignoring very clear symptoms of a cancer or other serious disease. It does not go away just because one denies its reality. 

Obviously, sand is an essential requirement for all solid construction work. It is also essential for manufacture of glass and electronics. However, our insatiable appetite for natural resources threatens the continued availability of sand. The demand for sand has seen an exponential growth, with a report by Fridolin Krausmann and his colleagues in Sustainability Science journal that between the years 1900 and 2010, the global demand for sand and other extracted natural resources increased 23-fold. 

The current global demand for sand is 50 billion tons a year. This is expected to grow to 82 billion tons per year by 2060. Since it takes thousands of years for the Earth to restore its sandstock, some scientists have calculated that the world might “run out of sand as early as 2050.”  Please pause and think about that.

China is the largest consumer of sand. A report eight years ago stated that China had used more cement in a two-year period than the United States had used in the entire twentieth century. Mining activities in Chinese lakes have already exacted a very heavy environmental and biological price. Whereas Chinese money has helped growing economies such as Uganda, it carries a price that invites balanced consideration of the short-term benefits and the long-term harm that unrestricted resource exploitation, such as sand mining, poses on the physical, biological, chemical and human aspects of the environment. 

It is not just the large sand mining concerns that are a threat to the environment. Even small-scale miners damage the ecosystems. A young man in my neighbourhood in Mparo was mining sand from the River Noozi, right outside our riverside natural fence. The thick bamboo trees gave him adequate cover to dig deeper into the river. His mounds of sand that he stored on our land earned him some money. The damage he did to the present and future of that river was not of interest to him.

I was not angry with him when I learned about his harmful actions. First, he was unaware of the science behind our environmental concerns. Second, I did not have a ready alternative to sustain his livelihood without damaging the environment. Third, he was not a lone culprit in this destructive business. The solution required the engagement of the local and national governments to enforce the regulations and create sustainable alternatives for youth employment. Those I spoke to responded with the usual silence, barely disguising disinterest in the subject.

The folks who have been campaigning for membership in parliament and for local leadership of my community have, so far, not uttered a word about the health of the environment in my home districts. Sand mining which, I am told, is taking place in nearly every river in my home districts has not featured on their agenda. This is true elsewhere in the whole country.

I invite those who seek to lead or represent us following next years’ election to spare a moment and focus on the environment degradation secondary to river and lake sand mining, hillside quarrying, wetland conversion into agricultural areas, deforestation, and encroachment on riparian lands. Such consideration should examine options for sustainable sources of construction-grade sand, and alternative occupations for citizens, especially the youth who need an income just like you and me. 

© Muniini K. Mulera