hot Christmas message , insulted, environment

I can’t recall ever celebrating a Christmas day hotter if not as hot at the one this year.

In the past, the joke around this period was for our brothers and sisters from the Diaspora who ‘come down’ as they like to say in ‘Mzungu accents’ to celebrate with their relatives, friends and in-laws during the festive season.

They come with the habit adopted from Englishmen of talking about the weather as is the wont in what we commonly call ‘outside countries.’

They go “when we left the UK, the temperature was about four degrees but it was okay. I am happy here, it is nice and warm, I don’t need jackets, gloves and scarves…”
This time round everyone you talk to is talking about the excessive heat.

This Christmas we have been served a stun reminder by the often insulted and degraded environment. There are consequences for our actions. The wetlands and forests are being degraded at an alarming rate. We live like the world started with us and is ending with us.

We need some basic lessons in how respecting, preserving, replenishing, sustaining and caring for the environment helps us, who use it. Trees release moisture in the atmosphere.

This moisture condenses and forms clouds which eventually come down as rain. That rain is required in our agriculture for the proper growth of plants which make our food. The logic here is the more trees we have the more rain we are likely to get and therefore greater chances of success in our agriculture which is the backbone of our economy.

The wetlands store water which evaporates releasing moisture into the atmosphere like the trees. When you fill them with earth you are sabotaging that function. The dry spells are bound to be longer and more severe like we are witnessing.

The lack of regular and reliable rains have messed up food production and animal husbandry leading to high food, meat and milk prices. This year the story of hunger and starvation in green and fertile Uganda has been very prominent in our newspapers.

According to Reliefweb.int, the country is generally food secure save for the Karamoja region which is majorly stressed with some eastern and central areas of the region are in crisis (Majority of the population (83 per cent) is minimally food insecure while 16 per cent are stressed due to effects of country-wide prolonged dry spells that caused average crop loss of 40 per cent across the country, increase in crop and livestock diseases and insecurity. One per cent are under crisis and are majorly found in Karamoja, Teso and Acholi and West Nile regions.

Two successive seasons characterised by crop failure, high livestock deaths and high food prices are the immediate causes of food crisis situation in Karamoja region.

So the immediate solution is to leave the wetlands and massively engage in tree planting especially fruit trees. These will give food as well.

This dry season many have survived on mangoes and jackfruit which are in abundance. But that alone is not enough. There is need to address the issues that force people to encroach on wetlands and cut trees relentlessly.

There are several land evictions in rural areas by investors and people seeking to keep their money away from the scrutiny of the financial systems. They buy entire villages.

The people then move to ‘free uninhabited public land’ which is mainly the forests and the wetlands. Secondly, most people find renewable energy like hydro and solar electricity too expensive.

So they see firewood as the only viable alternative. These are leadership matters for which solutions should be found .

Failure in leadership is the disaster that has led us to where we are. Interestingly, most stories in the media, involving politicians and regarding environmental issues are of politicians supporting the invasion of forests and wetlands for settlement of ‘their’ people read (voters.) Because they have not found a solution to the evictions and the energy question.

Trouble is that it is the same people for whom the forests and wetlands are laid bare to invade are the first people who suffer the consequences of environmental degradation as have been the case with those needing food relief.

Then the very politicians stand on a pedestal and blame the government for looking on while people die of hunger and starvation.

We have gone on for too long treating the environmental degradation issue as a subject of academic debates. This Christmas it has come to stare in our faces and we have to start working urgently on a solution.

Modernising agriculture to include irrigation should not remain a subject of the politician’s manifesto. There must be incentives to plant trees and teach the importance of wetlands and forests. That is the lesson we take into 2017.

Matters to do with the degradation of the environment may be swept under the carpet but they surely will come back to haunt us. This Christmas we have had a small glimpse.

Nicholas Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. [email protected] Twitter: @nsengoba