Nature Uganda in collaboration with the Ministry of Water and Environment and Uganda Flower Farmer’s Association co-initiated the “Commercial Flower Farms Integrated Catchment Management (CFF-ICM) Partnership” to promote sustainable and wise use of water and wetland resources by the commercial flower farms in Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA). The overall objective of the partnership is to strengthen collaboration between the public, private sector and non-state actors in the flower industry for sustainable use of natural resources in GKMA.

As commercial flower farms continue to expand their operations in the catchment areas around GKMA, conflicts over resources such as water and wetlands, which they depend on for business operations are also increasing.

There are increasing concerns towards demand for CFFs to undertake due diligence on whether they are implicated directly in any harm caused to people, animals, nature and environment anywhere in the value chain.

Transparency in reporting about environment performance is increasingly becoming an important demand for compliance to international market standards. However, the weak institutional framework to monitor compliance, inadequate skilled personnel and costs remain major compliance challenges for stakeholders in the flower sector in Uganda.

At farm level, there are limited skills and low levels of knowledge amongst farm workers to follow national compliance and regulatory requirements, occupational safety and health measures, inadequate record keeping and data management, insufficient water, and wastewater monitoring systems, among others. These challenges coupled with weak/irregular enforcement of regulations, and limited compliance assistance from the relevant government departments not only threatens the investments of the flower farms but results into declining capacity of wetland resources to provide critical ecosystem services.