Dear Bamugunki,
There is an old African proverb which says that when a man dips his
fingers to the bottom of a bowl, he is not looking for soup but for something
else, That African saying conforms to the fact that the frogs leaping in our
backyards don’t come to sing our children bedtime lullabies but escaping from
what they may perceive as a dangerous threat to their habitant, the number of
amphibians has increased drastically from my freshmen days to today around the
dwellings of kikoni and what captivates me is that we don’t give them a fair
hearing or perhaps listen attentively to their croaky complaints.
Whereas I might have had an opportunity to grow up around
the ‘Kinyarwanda’ swamps in Entebbe and had a beautiful experience as children,
we would hunt for lung fish in the swamp mud, then go on an expeditious
collection spree of rare and nutritious assortment of fruits growing at the
swamp edges, before returning home with full burgeoning stomachs heaping
praises on our adventurous nature, this trend is no more among the kids in that
area because the ‘Kinyarwanda’ swamp is eaten up by semi-permanent houses
cropping up at supersonic speed , It can
be argued that toads and frogs of our childhood days had strong energetic
croaks than their relatives of today, I don’t have the scientific facts but for
those of you that have lived long enough can bear me witness.
In my kikoni abode just off the dirty stream of water that
wells from the slums of Nakulabye through the swampy areas just after the new
grand global hotel and the kikoni police post through a labyrinth of
complicated housing units passing under the refurbished kikoni-kasubi road all
the way to the swamps below Lady Nafisa hostel is a revelation of an ecosystem
failure where species of all kinds especially the water dwelling are struggling
to cope up with the increasing population pressure exerted by humans
consequently affecting their natural habitant.
Sometimes when the rains fall, many a village farmer will be
exhilarated at the prospect of resuming their usual farming schedules but don’t
tell that to a dweller in bwaise, at that time of the year the media is awash
with news of flooding and collapse of structures due to water movements around
the kawempe bwaise areas, this unfriendliness of the water which lead to
humorists coining yet another moniker ‘water is life only if you don’t live in
bwaise’ has been attributed to the rampant settlement in swampy areas leading
to the distortion of the water flow pattern and thus flooding.
I believe this is time to increase societies moral
obligation towards the environment right from elementary schools for instance
the context of learning in our educational institutions should change to make
the environment an integral part of the normal teaching in all the subjects
from secondary all through university rather than as an isolated course unit in
a university program for environmental and engineering students. The environment
provides the basis for life and is a major determinant of the quality of life
and therefore it should be part of all education so that all citizens
understand that we are an integral part of nature and that we co-exist with all
the other species in the biosphere.
Practices such as trashing in public facilities or damping
in streams and wetlands and even construction of structures in wetlands can be
avoided in future by educating the younger generation on environment related
issues.
The National Environment Management Authority(N.E.M.A) on
the bigger part should be capacitated to indiscriminately prevent would be
settlers in the swamps from doing so and if the so called investor as many
would love to call them refuse to heed NEMA’S guidance should have their
structures abolished and the wetlands re-gazzeted, or even prosecute offenders
this way the country may increase the quality of life of its citizens, improve
on the environment and most importantly energize our ambitions to becoming a
first world country by 2050 after all first world countries take good care of
the environment, don’t they?
The project to reclaim the lost green cover from greedy patrons
of this country needs a deliberate intervention from the government and all
stake holders, appointing a serious executive officer at NEMA who will employ a
no no-sense attitude towards enforcing policy, who will always be accountable
to the appointing authority and will not bow to pressure at all times,
otherwise Madam Jenifer Musisi has set precedence and in so doing we will be
giving our amphibian neighbor’s a hope
of a bright new era, who knows we will not need to send our grand-children to
the Wild Life Education Centre (zoo) to see frogs and toads in just 100 years
from now.
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