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Uganda: The Trees Are Gone, the Floods Are Here, We've Forgotten How to Swim
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The East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
25 September 2007
Posted to the web 25 September 2007
Charles Onyango -Obbo
Nairobi
The picture emerging out of northeastern and parts of northern Uganda is not pretty. They are suffering some of the worst flooding in nearly half a century, and the havoc is expected to spread to the rest of the country soon.
This is part of the severe flooding that has overwhelmed 17 countries in Africa, with the UN estimating that at least 250 people have died, and nearly one million have been displaced.
I looked at all this misery, and figured that when Uganda last saw this kind of floods, my grandfather and grandmothers (in keeping with the times, he was an honest polygamist) were all still around.
So I asked myself; "how did they survive?"
I am not sure, but when the water rose very high, they must have climbed trees. If the floods were to visit my home district today, I fear quite a few fellows would die. Reason? There are hardly any trees left.
SECONDLY, ALL THE YOUNG people in the village in those days could swim. There were rivers all over the place. We looked forward to visiting with our grandparents during school holidays because the joy of taking a dip in the river away from the watchful eyes of parents (offering as it did the illusory hope that you might actually catch some fish if you ventured to the bottom) was unequalled. The swimming pool with its chlorine and sky blue water simply didn't hold a candle to the real thing.
Anyhow, nearly all those rivers have long since dried up; so, one imagines, fewer people in the rural areas can swim.
And, as we already reported, the forests have disappeared or are disappearing.
There's a crude link between the deaths attributed to the floods, and the fate of the forests. Of the 250, the most deaths have been reported in Sudan - 64. The second highest number of deaths, 41, has been in Nigeria.
It so happens to be that Nigeria and Sudan were the two largest losers of natural forest in the world during 2000-2005.
According to the UN, on generational terms, Uganda lost 26.3 per cent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2005. And that's only just about 60 per cent of the period that President Yoweri Museveni has been in power. If, as he seems intent on doing, he stays in power for another 15 years and his government's unfriendly attitude towards forests doesn't change, the game will be up. As it is, some 25 people in Uganda have died as a result of the floods, the highest death toll in the EAC.
Africa can do a lot more with its environment in order to reduce the disastrous effects of calamities like floods. One critical necessity is to reject the view that poor countries cannot protect the environment - or, worse, that they must be allowed their opportunity to destroy it like the industrialised countries did, then try and save it after they have become rich.
THAT'S A LOAD OF NONSENSE. Canada has maintained over 90 per cent of its original forest cover, the highest percentage in the world. It has done so while being one of the world's largest producers of high-quality forest products; and it's several times richer than all of Africa's leading forest-cutting countries combined.
There is some hope close to home that a poor country can turn things round. Forest areas in Rwanda have expanded since the end of the murderous war there in 1994. While it has no old growth of forest remaining, the national reforestation effort increased overall forest cover by an average of 8 per cent per year between 2000 and 2005.
The floods will go away. But as surely as night follows day, they will return. Next time, woe betide the country that has no trees.
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Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group's managing editor for convergence and new products.
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