The impacts of stone quarrying to the local community and the surrounding environment. A case study of nakisunga sub-county, mukono district.

ABSTRACT

In Uganda, especially in Nakisunga Sub-county, the stone quarrying industry has grown rapidly in recent years due to the construction boom in urban areas. It is one of the sources of income as well as environmental problems. Even though a number of control measures were introduced, putting them into practice was far below expectations and stone quarrying activities continued to cause serious environmental problems in the area. This study was therefore carried out with the main objective of assessing the impacts of stone quarrying to the local community and the surrounding environment by identifying the activities involved in stone quarrying, also establishing the effects of these activities on people’s welfare, finding out the challenges faced in the exploitation of stones. The study was descriptive in nature comprising of both qualitative and quantitative designs and a total of 80 respondents was chosen as the sample size. The study considered two types of data namely primary and secondary data which were obtained through field observation, taking photographs, questionnaires, interviews and review of relevant literature of scholarly materials. The sampling techniques were simple random sampling and purposive sampling. Data was mainly analyzed using frequencies and percentages and presented in form of descriptions, frequency distribution tables and photographs. The stone quarrying activities in the area included; stripping of over burden, hauling of soil, blasting, crushing, sieving and loading of stones and maintenance of access roads. The greatest factor influencing people to engage in stone quarrying was to provide household basic needs while the least was level of education. The main positive outcome of stone quarrying to the stakeholders in the community was wages and self-employment while the least was decision making capacity. The major negative impacts indentified were effects on human health and the least were geomorphic impacts. The biggest challenge faced in stone quarrying was the effect on human health while the least was seasonality of quarrying activities. Findings indicated that there was a strong positive relationship between the challenges of stone quarrying activities and the negative impacts that come as a result of stone quarrying. The greatest measure used to minimise these impacts was creating awareness while the least was capacity building. The suggested measure to ensure proper utilisation of stone reserves was sensitization and law enforcement. The study has made recommendations including; adopting methods and technologies that are user and environmentally friendly, capacity building, awareness campaigns and enforcement of laws and regulations.