The damage of an untethered river

Last week Samuel Muhindo, our excellent project officer in Uganda, sent round a short video clip of a river in the Ruwenzori Mountains. It was a raging, boiling torrent. The untethered river had burst its banks and the thick brown water roared past.

The brutal flooding of the Nyamwamba River has led to loss of crops, farms and houses.

I was in those mountains earlier this year with Samuel. The mountains are steep-sided and many houses seem to cling perilously to the hillsides. Mudslides are commonplace. We call this area a hotspot – with high biodiversity value (adjoining the national park), a degraded ecosystem and precarious livelihoods.

When I saw the river in full spate I immediately thought of the landscape upstream. I was painfully aware that the river was carrying topsoil stripped from the hillsides by the water coming off the mountains as it thundered down the valley. This is how upstream land degradation in the Ruwenzori Mountains has severe knock-on effects downstream.

I hope there won’t be a time later this year when Samuel sends another video clip – of the same river, but unseasonably dry, affecting all the people, livestock and crops that depend on it. If that happens then my mind will again turn inescapably to the mountains. Restored they can act like a sponge, regulating water flows.

Earlier this year, when I visited the Ruwenzori Mountains I saw the work of ITF’s partners, Alpha Women’s Empowerment Initiative and Karambi Disabled People’s Organisation, in community-led reforestation and land stabilisation. They are planting native trees and grasses to grip the soil and reduce the severity of these floods. The community are fully involved in the work.

I fear that climate change will only make events like this more frequent and more severe. These hotspots that we are targeting are right on the frontline in the climate crisis. There are vicious and virtuous cycles at play. Landscape degradation leads to poorer soil quality and less protection of the soil which, after heavy rains, leads to poorer soil quality and less protection of the soil. We are supporting communities to break that cycle.

Thankfully no one lost their life in this disaster and the river has begun to subside. As a fellow tree lover, I know that when Samuel sees the damage of the raging Nyamwamba River he also thinks of the reforestation work we are doing in the mountains. Samuel and our other colleagues in Africa are itching to support far more restoration in these hotspots if we can find more resources to do so.

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