Diana Kibuuka
“Among the measures to prevent convergence of birds in and around the airport, the Wildlife management unit monitors bird attractants like water ponds and waste management by the community in the vicinity of the airport, among others,” Eng. Ayub Sooma, the Director of Airport and Aviation Security at UCAA
According to International Civil Aviation Organization – ICAO Bird Strike Information System (IBIS) report of 2016-2021, Uganda is listed amongst the 194 countries that experienced wildlife strikes – The global total record of these stands at 273 343.
The first global data records between 2001 – 2007, recorded 42 508 wildlife strike reports and between 2008 – 2015, the recordings were 97 751 wildlife strikes.
Looking at the recordings the increasing wildlife strikes are becoming a threat to the aviation industry especially in region that are marked as bird sanctuaries.
Habitat modification is one key area that ICAO advises airports to take into consideration so as to attract less birds and other wildlife, within and airport surroundings. Open waters, wetlands and dumping sites, which are natural habitats and sources of food, when in proximity of the airport, do compromise aviation.
Although according to Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), Uganda has never experienced a fatal wildlife strike, much as its international airport is geographically located on the shores of Lake Victoria, a gazetted Bird Sanctuary that hosts over 3000 bird species – Human activities like farming that may attract birds and poor waste management can attract more birds within the airport surrounding and thus there’s need to control such activities to avoid wildlife strikes.
Two months back UCAA, sensitized residents of Nakiwogo community, a busy landing site 10 kilometers away from Entebbe International airport, on waste management in order to avoid attracting birds to ensure safer skies.
However, on the recent Kiteezi waste slide occurrence that saw waste diverted to Nkumba dumping site that is only about 15 kilometers, away from Entebbe International airport, there are fears that with now over 2500 metric tons of garbage poured daily, the possibilities are very high that these will attract more birds within this aviation zone.
The UCCA Director General Fred Bamwesigye says, they closely work with National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), that is charged with carrying out environment assessments and in any case, UCAA should be involved in projects or activities that directly may affect aviation works.
Entebbe International Airport Developments.
Phase I upgrading and expansion of Entebbe International Airport stands at 92% completion, with the current major works now focusing on increasing the terminal building capacity from 20,000Sqkms to 50.000Sqkms.
Eng. Ayub Sooma said they expect to complete this terminal building in December this year.
In terms of traffic, Entebbe International Airport has also registered an increase in cargo, in the first half of 2024 as compared to the same period in 2023, from 25951 metric tons to 32794 metric tons – Out of this export cargo recorded an increase of 18.9% with 22380 metric tons, while imports increased at 46.2% with 10214 metric tons.
Bamwesigye explained that have exports have generally remained higher for the last four years and called on Ugandans to continue mobilizing more exports for the country because as UCAA this is their target and they are doing everything possible to make sure they have the capacity to handle more figures that the country would need.
The passenger traffic January 2024 – June 2024 stood at 1,069,224 passengers, out of which 527,692 were arrivals and 541,532 were departures – This is an increment compared to a total of 842,429 passengers in the same period of 2023.
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