Why we should act on damaged environment urgently

By Musa Ecweru (MP)

Uganda like the rest of the world is regrettably beginning to witness severe consequences of a degraded environment – call it effects of climate change.

This is because we have destroyed our forests, we have silted our dams (wetlands), we have polluted our fresh water lakes and we continue to chock our towns and cities with dangerous materials made of chlorofluorocarbons that are not biodegradable, hence posing a problem both to the present and future generations.

The following stand out as glaring consequences of our reckless actions on our environment:

1- We now witness very long dry spells with extraordinary temperatures – sometimes outright drought.

2- Rains accompanied with strong windstorms that have de-roofed hundreds of schools, health centres, administrative buildings and left many private citizens homeless!  This is because the trees that were once windbreakers are no more!

3- We are witnessing frequent floods with colossal damage to the Government and households in terms of human life and destroyed economic infrastructure like bridges etc.  This is mainly because the dams, the rivers and the wetlands that once trapped and channeled flood waters into the lakes are now silted!

In the towns and cities like Kampala, plastic non-degradable materials continue to block the water channels, causing flooding even with light rains.

This indeed threatens to reverse most of our development gains.

The following interventions must be undertaken as a matter of urgency:

1- Planting trees and protecting the remaining natural forests must be handled as a national priority and I propose that the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister calls all the Government departments and ministries to order in this regard so that we act in unison.

2- Uganda Investment Authority must encourage investors to recycle materials that they use.

3- The Ministry of Water and Environment must be helped to step up desilting of the numerous dams and rivers in the country that are now completely silted.

3- With the climate change policy now in place, the Ministry of Water and Environment, working with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Information and National Guidance, must take issues of climate change to the public domain and let it be understood at all levels of education from primary to university.

This call for action will help prevent mega disasters in our country while conserving our environment for us to bequeath to our children and their children.

Global climate change will affect people and the environment in many ways. Some of these impacts like severe heat waves we have been experiencing, could become life threatening. As the Earth keeps getting warmer, the negative effects are expected to outweigh the positive ones.

The more we learn about how climate change will affect people and the environment, the more we can see why people need to take action to reduce causes of climate change. We can also take steps to prepare for the changes we know are coming.

Let us act now.

The writer is the Minister of State for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees