More than 53,000 Tonga speaking people in the area are facing a bleak future. For the past 40 years, the valley's forests have been disappearing 30 times faster than they are being planted while hill sides are continually being stripped of their protective covering of vegetation. The trees help lock into the soil the many precious nutrients needed for farming and preventing them from being washed away by rainfall. Swelling populations, poor land management, vulnerable soils and hostile climates are all preconditions that exacerbate soil erosion. Soil erosion causes crop yields to decrease.
Floods deposit huge amounts of silt into down stream reservoirs and river valleys.
A local group is trying to advocate for education on the damage of soil erosion. Mutamba says in terms of biophysical degradation, soil erosion has a telling effect on the environment and quality of life for both human and animal life. There is also need to scrutinize the political and economic impacts on a given society. Yet, erosion is literally costing the earth. Farmers lose between 12.5-16 million acres of healthy land each year.