The Director for Communications for Parliament of Uganda, Chris Obore has challenged the people of conserve mother nature.
In a communication made via his social media handle, Obore wondered why the kids can now go hungry in the land that once had everything in plenty.
“I am nostalgic about the Teso of late 80s and early 90s. Fruits were growing in the wild & as kids, we could never go hungry.” Obore twitted adding that all kinds of flowers would blossom in season.
He added that swamps were a source of fish. “Rice was grown near the swamps not in the swamps. I miss that Teso.”
Obore’s concern comes at a time when the world is amplifying efforts to restore wetlands across the globe.
Its ideal that an attack on wetlands is an attack on our natural heritage. The thirteenth and fifteenth Sustainable Development Goals encourage us to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss. Achieving this requires our collective commitment and action against wetland encroachment.
Role of wetlands to the environment.
Wetlands play vital ecological and socio-economic functions such as flood mitigation, water purification, erosion prevention, moderation of extreme flows of water, maintenance of water tables in surrounding lands, and providing habitat for numerous species of animals and plants that contribute to a rich biodiversity. Wetlands are also essential for food, medicines, water supply, fisheries, dry season grazing for livestock, nutrient retention, elimination of toxins, tourism, and recreational use among other benefits.
Yet despite the myriad benefits they provide, wetlands are among the ecosystems with the highest rates of decline, loss, and degradation. Wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forests and are Earth’s most threatened ecosystem.
In Uganda, wetlands continue to be degraded and the current area of wetlands across the country is below that recorded in the 1990s. In the urban areas, there is indiscriminate encroachment for expansion of human settlements while in the rural areas there is steady conversion of wetlands for agricultural use. According to the Uganda Wetlands Atlas Volume II, developed by the Government in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the national area of wetlands declined by 30 per cent between 1994 and 2008. And although between 2008 and 2014, there was an increase in area under wetlands, this has been a paltry 0.03 per cent increase: from 26,307km2 in 2008 to 26,315 km2 in 2014 (MWE, 2014).
“Now more than ever government of Uganda is committed to financing and enforcing wetlands management through stake holder engagements, creating innovative land scape mmanagement practices and providing alternative livelihood options. Wetlands are home to a variety of natural creatures, they offer alternative livelihoods, mitigate floods, filtrate water bodies and harbor papyrus a raw material for basket weaving. If we want to destroy Uganda lets destroy wetlands,” Said Mr. Alfred Okot Okidi, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Water and Environment.
