Inspections by the Rwanda Environment Management Authority conducted to ensure environmental protection compliance and enforcement from 2020 to January 2024, revealed that 108 people and businesses were punished for encroaching and polluting lakes across the country.
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The investigation was carried out on Lake Kivu, Lake Muhazi and twin lakes Burera and Ruhondo.
Beata Akimpaye, Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Division Manager at Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), told The New Times, on January 16, that 34 people and businesses were punished between 2023 and January 2024.
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"People encroaching lake buffer zones have been punished as stipulated by the existing laws, especially the law on environment. Polluters are punished by the provisions of the 2018 law on environment,” she noted.
She said 15 people and businesses were punished in 2022, 31 in 2021 and 28 in 2020 due to encroaching of the lake buffer zones. In total, 108 polluters have been punished.
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Article five of the law on the environment related to the ‘polluter pays’ principle aims to deter activities that harm the environment and to punish any person who violates regulations. It highlights that "Any person who demonstrates behaviour or activities that cause or may cause adverse effects on the environment is either punished or ordered to make restitution. If restitution is not possible, he/she is also ordered to rehabilitate it.”
Article 49 related to the violation of required distances of buffer zones states that any person who builds an agricultural and livestock installation at a distance of 10 metres away from the banks of streams and rivers, and 50 metres away from the lake banks, is liable to an administrative fine of Rwf500,000 and demolition of their installations.
If the owner of the project that underwent an environmental impact assessment commits acts that result in damage to the ecosystem, they are responsible for rehabilitating the damaged ecosystem and paying an administrative fine equal to two per cent of the project’s cost.
Any person who pollutes water bodies such as lakes by dumping, spilling, or depositing chemicals of any nature above tolerable limits for human health or aquatic life, commits an offence.
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Upon conviction, they are liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than two months and not more than two years, and a fine of not less than Rwf2 million, and not more than Rwf5 million.
As a way forward, Akimpaye said regular inspections and monitoring to stop lake buffer encroachment, polluting activities and the enforcement of existing legal instruments are needed.
She made the case for collaboration with local leaders and other stakeholders to stop polluting activities on lakes.
"Water resources must be protected from any source of pollution. Lakes are useful for humans. Protecting their shores thus prevents pollution. Lakes also contain ecosystems that need to be protected from pollution as well,” she added.
Rwanda has 860 marshlands and 101 lakes covering a total surface of 278,536 hectares (10.6 per cent of the country's surface area), and 149,487 hectares, respectively.
The main lakes in Rwanda are Lake Kivu, Lake Ruhondo, Lake Mugesera, Lake Burera, Lake Muhazi, and Lake Ihema.
Remy Norbert Duhuze, Manager of the Water Monitoring and Quality Control Division at the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB), said polluted water can result in a negative impact on aquatic life such as the survival of fish and other aquatic organisms.
"Also, the population should report any suspected wrongdoing as these water bodies are public property that should be protected by every citizen,” he noted.
Conservation experts have proposed a community participatory approach as a sustainable model that could end the rising encroachment of Rwanda’s major lake and river buffer zones.