In this article I will manifest fully as a person of a biological, ecological, zoological and environmental background (conservation biologist). To-date most people have perceived that I belong to the social science or humanities knowledge spheres. I don’t. I am simply comfortable with crosscutting, integrative knowledge for fuller and better understanding of human-mediated and non-human mediated challenges, problems and issues in our environment – local, national, regional and global.

This orientation has helped me improve my critical thinking and critical analysis skills over time, widened my scope of seeing (it is the brain that sees), and to always seek interdependences and interconnections between phenomena, issues and problems.

I hope those from the academic, intellectual, policy and science arenas of human endeavour will find this article reinvigorating and a reminder that we tend to talk conservation without conserving. They may be able to see that, therefore, we are the main reason why our environment is degrading more and more with the passage of time despite heavy inputs of time, energy and money in efforts to protect and conserve it.

The article may be of great use to researchers and academics in the biological sciences, and of general interest to diverse readers in all spheres of knowledge labour and practice, including practical policy design and application geared towards managing the environment and the resources thereof.

Almost everything we do is attuned to economics (the higher form of politics) and politics (the higher form of economics). Both economists and politicians everywhere in any given country in our region and continent and on the globe, are united in reducing all development to economic development. They hardly pay attention to the truism that development is a multidimensional concept or phenomenon, one of the dimensions being the economic one.

Other dimensions include the social, cultural, political, ecological, spiritual, mental, psychological, ethical, moral, academic, intellectual and environmental. Hence, we do not only have economic development, but also social development, cultural development, political development, ecological development, spiritual development, mental development, psychological development, ethical development, moral development, academic development, intellectual development and environmental development. However, all these different types of development are integral aspects of environmental development.

For purposes of this article, I have chosen to exclude hydropower, atomic energy, oil and military development from environmental development because it is always environmentally destructive and exclusive development. In fact, in many countries generally and Uganda in particular budgetary allocation to this type of development is supersonically rising at the expense human social development.

Such development is enemy number one of biodiversity and a continuing and rising cause of environmental degradation and, consequently, climate change. So, it is an antithesis of environmental development. The more it is preferred in development, the more it excludes environmental development from overall development dynamics. It is the foundation of economic and political domination globally, regionally and nationally.

Development is wholesome when the various dimensions of environmental development are given equal weight and integrated to achieve integrated environmental development. It is an abuse of environmental development if one aspect – in this case economic development – is pursued at the expense of the other types of development.

Frequently environmental development is ignored in favour of economic development, which is pursued at the expense of the other types of development locally, nationally, regionally and globally. This way, nature, environment and, for that matter, environmental development are not only excluded from the economy and economic development but their processes are regarded as add-on processes that are secondary to the economy and economic development.

That is why in many countries, conservation is done deceptively. It is never a primary undertaking, which it is in traditional agroecological farming and cultural forestry in which the centrality of environment, culture, sociality (the tendency to associate in social groups), spirituality, ethics and morality to production is an issue of survival and continuity.

In traditional conservation practice, conservation is taken as a matter of life and death, which it regulates in case of plants and animals, including Man – homo sapiens. This is exactly the opposite of modern institutional conservation, which is pursued as a political and technical matter. Yet since time immemorial conservation is a social and cultural matter whereby biological, social, cultural, spiritual and ecological survival has driven the process.

From an ecological viewpoint, we recognise social ecology, spiritual ecology, whereby if disrupted, natural development of human communities is destroyed, along with the ethics, morality and restraint that have since time immemorial characterized it.

Let me introduce you to the different types of ecology that have been central to traditional human-energy production systems the world over, which are succumbing to modern human-energy production systems towards economic development, and without which traditional society degrades and collapses:

Cultural ecology investigates the relationship between human groups and their environment; identifying the environment as a fundamental variable that influences culture and human adaptation, then this relationship has gone through different phases.

Social ecology is the study of how individuals interact with and respond to the environment around them, and how these interactions affect society and the environment as a whole.

Spiritual ecology is an emerging field in religion, conservation and academia that proposes that there is a spiritual facet to all issues related to conservation, environmentalism and earth stewardship.

A moral ecology is a set of norms, assumptions, beliefs and habits of behaviour and an institutionalised set of moral demands that emerge organically. Our moral ecology encourages us to be a certain sort of person.

The aim of an ethics of ecology is to help us avoid disturbing the ecological integrity, stability and beauty of nature. This is in turn a necessary condition for bringing about ecological justice, understood as comprised of justice to both human and nonhuman organisms and systems.

In pursuing economics and economic development per se, African countries in general and Uganda in particular, have declared war on natural development of human communities, which is environmental development. This explains why Nature (such as forests and swamps) is easily degazetted for economic pursuits, ignoring its intricate interconnections and interdependences with ancient social and cultural systems that are time-tested. Therefore, political and technical reasons to economic ends are the main reason why environmental resources are continually degraded.

• A Tell report / By Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula, a former professor in the Department of Environmental Science of the Makerere University, Uganda