River causes confusion
2009-11-11 08:58
Kampala - The changing course of a river marking the natural border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo has caused boundary confusion in an oil rich area, a Ugandan official told AFP on Tuesday.
The Semliki River has changed course several times since 1960 as rising water volumes caused by melting snow caps result in meandering and changing of the course of the river and therefore the boundary.
"We never had an official boundary. The colonialists just said 'use the river' and that is what we had always gone with," said Goreti Kitutu of the National Environmental Management Authority.
"But we used 1960 satellite images and we saw that the river has changed course more than 100 times since then. Lower down Uganda has lost territory, but closer to Lake Albert it is Congo that has lost," she explained, adding that Uganda has possibly gained 50km² of territory.
She said that several communities that used to be Ugandan are now Congolese and a telephone pole which was installed by Uganda decades ago now lies within DR Congo.
Increased run-off from melting ice caps
Run-off from the ice caps on the Rwenzori mountains is one of the Semliki's major sources, and as temperatures have risen in recent years, water volumes have increased causing erosion on the river banks and redirection of its course, Kitutu said.
"Our research shows that the river has widened by an average of 10m." The implications of the Semliki's changing course are more than just environmental.
"This can lead to conflict. We know there is oil underneath and around Lake Albert and once oil is involved you never know what can happen," she said.
Exploration companies have discovered at least 1.5 billion barrels of oil on the Ugandan shore of Lake Albert. But exploration is expected to continue southwest of the lake, where the Semliki divides the two countries.
According to research conducted by the Climate Change Unit and Uganda's water ministry, 198.5 hectares of ice disappeared between 1906 and 2006 on Mount Speke, one the highest peaks on the Rwenzori range.
Most of the melting occurred after 1987.
There is an ongoing bilateral effort to more accurately define the Ugandan border with DR Congo, but the team has not yet released its findings.
- SAPA