Why We Ought to be Careful with Dredging River Naam in South Sudan
Sudd Wetland, Jonglei State, South Sudan
By Amb. Jwothab Amum Ajak, Melbourne, Australia
Monday, September 26, 2022 (PW) — What is dredging? Dredging could either be one, two, three or all the following activities: deepening, widening, scooping the mud and sand as well as clearing the weeds. Dredging, necessary as it is, is not a shot in the darkness. Once it is decided to dredge, then, the all-important question to ask is how to dredge to achieve the desired goal, objective, and purpose. “How” provides the guidelines, specifications, and measurements to be applied in dredging.
The immediate need, priority and interest or the primary goal for needing dredging are to return the river to its normal flow; a return, where it functions as an easy, convenient, and cheap means of transport meanwhile also reducing flood vulnerability. A return flow that conserves and sustains it but also without draining its waterways and toics.
The said objectives and goals could be achieved by removing and clearing hyacinth mats together with plastics and other weeds menaces, that have choked Khors, waterways and streams; so, water couldn’t flow easily. Whereas deepening the riverbed and/or widening of the riverbanks if resorted to, on evidence-based proof studies, should be one of the last long-term solutions that should require long-term planning and strategies. And that supposedly should be after demonstration and test that clearing has not achieved what is supposed to achieve.
Without careful measurement, overdoing the deepening and widening activities of the riverbanks could adversely result in enlarging the river’s capacity to take in more water with the effect of enhancing the water flow further. And slowly with time, as most experts agree, lead adversely to the drying of the waterways and swamps and even the sudd. No one has compelling scientific evidence to refute that deepening and widening in all or specific locations, could not lead to the withdrawal of water than originally planned or thought of leading to adverse untoward negative impacts and consequences.
Specifications of the depth and width of the river to be dredged, based on past dredging records, are important to serve as reference points otherwise any overdoing of the deepening and widening activities of the riverbanks could turn the river into another river: wide, deep, and flowing rapidly. For example, how deep the digging will have to be. Also true of widening. Widening by how many meters needs to be specified and the maps of the locations where the widening and the deepening will take place are made known. In short something akin to a guiding manual on the course of dredging is needed without which the dredge works studies may be considered incomplete.
Previous dredging studies cannot be taken for granted or relied upon. They need to be reviewed and updated in light of many credible international water and climate change experts’ studies on climatic change. Hence, let us give all stakeholders, particularly the South Sudanese people and the government ample time to review those studies according to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation best practices. Also, time to allow them to consult as widely as possible.
However, most importantly, is to allow the government and the universities to carry out their own research and studies on the effect of dredging on water management and control. This is what transpired from the South Sudanese Awareness and Consultation on Water Management.
We must heed the science and ensure dredging is based on scientific predicted impacts, a result of a thorough environmental assessment. This is important to safeguard each stakeholder’s interest as well it will put into consideration the biodiversity and ecosystem of the wetlands and sudd.
Weed clearing, mud, and sand sediment removal activities are not new. They were part of the routine regular activities which used to be carried out by the concerned authorities. The previous dredging did not enhance the water flow in any apparently significant untoward manner. That is why they were done without anybody raising his/her voice. What is new this time that roused the fears and concerns of many, is the overall perception that something bigger and different than those previous routine businesses is about to be carried out.
Cooperation and collaboration to maintain and sustain the river’s health and life; and to keep it free of pollution (one of the Sustainable Development Goals 6 of the United Nation may be a duty/a responsibility incumbent upon all those sharing the water of the Nile and its is for the mutual benefits of them too. So is cooperation in case of dredging to manage and control of floodwater, of which our partners, have long experience. However, the involvement, participation, and collaboration in that delayed dredging were unprecedented as it came with an MOU and/or an Agreement and with first-time very heavy dredging machines. That has raised questions as to why this time dredging is different from previous ones, a regular routine.
Some argued that there is an accumulated work log of 3 decades; the last time dredging had been done. Well, that is true but without proper explanation, people will remain confused about the benefits as well as the disadvantages of dredging. If that need to be explained as I believe it should, then better explain it and laid it to rest for good before implementation of the dredging. That would have saved the officials from the unceremonial situation they were in last time during the public inquiry.
The sensitivity and mistrust are not unfounded nor are they based in the far-flanged past but are embedded in the recent history of excavation of none other than the Jonglei Canal. After all, Southerners have had been always at the receiving end of bad anti-development policies right from colonial eras up to the independence of South Sudan. The parties to dredging should have themselves to blame for the negative perception and feelings born out of the negative previous experiences. To avoid that and allay fears. the project studies should have been an open book right from the start studies of such a sensitive existential project
“According to research by the World Wildlife Fund about half of the world’s Wetlands have been destroyed since 1900” Water Scarcity: A Global Crisis and Its Management by Albert Szent Gyorgji. Our wetlands, waterways and “toics” including the Sudd aren’t bulletproof or immune to climate change. If we think, the drying and the disappearance cannot or will not, we better think again. Dredging that leads to a very fast rapid flow of the river water will make destruction in a relatively very short time.
Let us realize that the drying of “toics”, and wetlands will have detrimental consequences on the live hoods of communities, which depend heavily on their living on the river for fishing. Not only so but the majority, of South Sudanese working class in urban centres, they will be hit harder too, as dry fish form the main part of their affordable daily protein intake. Dry fish export to DRC and CAR or fish traders, in general, will suffer too. Save the effects on livestock, birds, and wildlife, particularly aquatic wildlife. Climate change is now an undeniable reality even to the most sceptics. And by all measures, we should prepare and not be caught off guard.
Also “It has been estimated that by 2040 not much water would be available to meet the demands of humans as well as an ecosystem”. Suppose rainfall decreases and the wetlands dry up then we will be for sure the poor of the poorest in terms of water. Yet, we who have no alternative water resources- no sea to desalinate, no significant underground water to rely upon- except the river and the wetlands, are giving little or no attention to serious planning for the danger that might befall.
There will be the problem of food shortage because our agricultural production, based on rainfall, will suffer much too. Thus, securing our water future source, as an important strategic resource, through preserving the Sudd and the wetlands as well as through better planning and sustainable development, is a big national responsibility, not to be forfeited by this generation.
Flood water can be put to more uses than the manna of the old. You can drink from it; you can cultivate with it and produce food; you could generate from its electricity. With that understanding, we need to view floods as a challenge to be overcome and turned around to benefit from, as many nations are doing. We need strategies and plans to manage and utilize the flood water to cultivate vast land and plant year-round. Proper utilization of water will go to improve South Sudan’s economy and wean us from the total dependency on diminishing oil revenues.
It is time to revive defunct economic development projects of Malut Sugar Cane; Mangala Sugar Cane; Jude Plantation in Tonj; plus, Aweil Rice scheme etc. (some were foiled by some invisible scheming hands, as part of continuous deliberate anti-development bad policies.) If we were successful with those agricultural projects, they would have a long time ago wetted our suppressed appetite for agricultural development drive and for economic equitable utilization of water.
We have given our backs to that era, with no return where our people were made to just watch water going downstream without any reasonable and equitable use of it in agriculture. The point I want to make is that in the past to purchase just a two-inched pumping machine the applicant must get approval from the Authority. Even that comes after a tedious red tape process. With that restriction in place, the farmers were made to largely depend on rainfall to cultivate once a year. Shortage of food was and still is because we were and are still using primitive agricultural means of production and relying on rainfall only.
Sadly! because, of that our people have been portrayed by some who were not aware or are aware but choose to ignore the restricting regulation and control policy of the Nile water, which was in place until recently, that our people are lazy; and do not like to till the land. Not reality. What the censure did was tied the hands of the farmers and arrest agricultural development and subject the riparian South Sudanese people to recurring starvation.
Another bad policy was the use of boreholes. Boreholes were dug over many places in South Sudan even though some places are just a stone’s throw away from the freshwater of the streams and rivers. They were dug despite the fact in many instances their water was found not potable for healthy human consumption than the fresh water running down the river and the streams. To make animals or persuade people to drink them as if we have no better alternative, was a very big mistake.
President Kiir’s wise decision to suspend dredging is no denial of the dangers floods are posing. Only to allow for studies to be carried out, so that dredge work is done better and efficiently. The time has come for us to rely more on science and to give up haphazard projects of fire-fighting nature.
Our people in Bentiu and elsewhere in Jonglei and the Upper Nile States should believe there is no one person in his right mind who will just think, just a thought, to let them suffer from the flood. Let alone relocate them from their ancestral lands. To save from recurring floods there is a need to dredge. And to dredge rightly a little bit of patience is needed such that the studies are completed. With due patience they are going to reap better-studied and better-researched, win-win dredging projects, projects that will of course be better- executed and will preserve and sustain the ecosystem and make flood hazards a thing of the past.
Let us remember, lest we might forget, the dangers of floods. In the 1965 devastating flood, South Sudan lost many of the richest pristine tropical forests. Those forests were habitats for rare native plant varieties as well as fauna. They are gone because of many floods particularly the one in 1965. Those forests to form and organise once again may take another million of years or more. Unfortunately, the formation and organisation would come with the loss forever of certain lives and certain species of animals and plants. It is not only a loss for South Sudan but for humanity.
Many observers believe, the canal which the government of the day thought will fight floods among other claimed benefits, was not going to do what it promised to do. Right now, on the contrary, it is submerging and flooding its confluence with River Sobat and downstream as it is drawing more water from the wetlands through which it is passing.
The Canal, even though not yet completed, has turned out to be the graveyard not only of tens but of hundreds of wildlife and of course when completed the figure will rise. An animal if it happens to fall into the canal is then doomed. Getting out with difficulty may be possible for a human being, but not for sure for a four-legged animal. This has led, we are told, to the wild animals which used to migrate from East to West passing through the Canal area changing their migration pattern to other neighbouring countries. This has caused South Sudan to lose a rich source of tourist attraction.
Rather than embarking on dredging River Naam, another risky and environmentally sensitive project that could have more untold risks than the unfinished Canal, why not do something to help stop or at least mitigate the many losses and disadvantages of the Jonglei Canal particularly the ongoing slaughter to the wildlife. That is done as a priority would be more reassuring that the beneficiaries would take care of any problems, failures or losses anticipated or unanticipated that would emerge from dredging the River Nam. Stakeholders in any enterprise, I believe, share the benefits/dividends as well as the losses. It is not fair to be left to one party alone.
In conclusion, dredging can play a vital role in mitigating and fighting floods but without exercising extreme caution dredging work too can be a lethal killer to the wetlands, waterways, toics, swamps and even to the mass land termed Sudd. I likened the process of drying and of disappearing of the Sudd, toics, wetlands etc. God forbid, because of dredging to the killing of the goose that lay golden eggs. Basically, because our live hood, to a great extent, depends on them.
We have been seriously warned not to temper that delicate ecosystem otherwise it will turn badly against us. In other words, dredging is a double-blade sword. It can be cut both ways. It can fight to flood, but it can also go to dry the wetlands where we end up creating another problem not for those communities, which we plan to save from recurring flooding of disastrous proportions but for the whole of South Sudan.
Let us heed the expert advice and get rid of the mindset that sees the deepening and widening of the river to take in more water as the only flooding fighting strategy. What we want from dredging may not, by necessity, be the same as what our partners want. Therefore, the objectives, reasons and sole purposes for why we are dredging, agreed upon, have to be conspicuously highlighted, so that no two will disagree about it later on in future.
When something goes wrong, and things can go wrong sometimes and/or a serious irreparable mistake can happen that will not bring back: the forests; the fisheries, the wildlife etc. In short where the losses will be a matter of going with the wind.
To safeguard against that from happening and/or have nobody to use as a scapegoat or trade blame with the government has got to be seriously involved taking full execution responsibility and keeping its eyes all the way in all the project’s stages, particularly on the dredge work.
The author, Ambassador Jwothab Amum Ajak, is a concerned South Sudanese Australian who can be reached via his email address: jaajak17@gmail.com.
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