Stories – Uganda

Even with the predictions of the calamity of climate change, it is worth celebrating the month of March which commemorates some of the most significant environment days including Day of Action for Rivers, Solar Appreciation Day, International Day of Forests, World Planting Day, and World Water Day. The Uganda Water and Environment Week in March is also a significant intervention that gives room for pause to ponder the best actions to make a positive change for our planet.

As forests and wetlands continue to get degraded, so does the quality of human life as the natural reservoirs and source of water get degenerated.

Just this April, Uganda Biodiversity Fund (UBF) gave a small grant of US$ 35,029 to Raising Gabdho Foundation Limited to carry out a project titled Green Clubs Energy Project in and around the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement. The goal of the project was to contribute towards Climate Change adaptation and resilience around Bugoma Central Forest Reserve. By the end of the project, it was hoped that the community would have adopted alternative sources of energy and energy efficient technologies.

The Batwa people of the Great Lakes Region of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo are part of a wider group of equatorial forest-dwelling peoples in Africa sometimes termed ‘Pygmies’. In the past four decades, the creation of national parks and protected forest areas in Uganda has resulted in the final expulsion of the Batwa communities from the forests which had been their home for centuries.

Uganda Biodiversity Fund (UBF) was registered in 2016 and officially launched in 2018 as a Trust established to provide sustainable financing for the conservation of Uganda’s biodiversity. Uganda has recognized the need for a proactive approach to conservation of the environment and a healthy ecosystem.

Trekking along the fringes of Budongo Forest in Masindi District, one cannot help but be awestruck by the beauty of nature all around, but beyond this lies a pervading darkness that threatens the security of this Central Forest Reserve – encroachment through human economic activity.