It should never be in question that the electorate demand that everyone and anyone seeking a political office should have demonstrated to the country his or her degree of environmental knowledge, awareness, concerned and action

Environment is the pivot of LIFE and as South African novelist Alan Paton puts it in his classic Cry, The Beloved Country, it determines human survival. Paton reminds mankind of the sanctity of the environment thus:

“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa… The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.”

It therefore behooves a candidate for a political office lay bare his or her environmental vision for his or her constituency, region and country.

Over and above everything else, we must accept the truth and reality about environmental degradation in Uganda and ask hard questions about why it is continually degrading, how, who and what are the contributing factors to the rapid the degradation. If voters ignore the truth, we live in self-denial and deception.

Environmental deception combined with political deception are a dangerous combination. It is enemy number one to development, transformation and progress. If we are fixated with increasingly debilitating climate change, it is this deadly combination that is responsible. No amount of talking locally, nationally, regionally and globally will do unless we resolve to confront the deadly combination.

Here is food for thought for voters as Uganda rapidly slides into one huge derelict ecosystem.

• There is no more boundary between the natural and unnatural because of the exacerbated techno-arrogance and techno-stupidity, greed and selfishness of humanity. We should not continue to put God or Nature at the centre of environmental decay and collapse. Man, Homo sapiens, is the pivot of environmental decay and collapse.
• Environmental destruction and problems begin with humanity as the cause and end with humanity as the victim.
• Despite our knowledge that humanity is the cause and ultimate victim of environmental decay and collapse, environmental destruction is spiraling upwards.
• Environmental leadership and governance increasingly serves the interests, greed and selfishness of those in positions of leadership.
• The current globally distributed sunspots (hotspots) should not be blamed on Nature or God. The blame is the collective environmental corruption, bankruptcy, illiteracy, ignorance, greed and selfishness of the world’s political leaders.
• The world’s political leaders are made of the same brain. They see (and it is the brain, which seems while eyes observe) as something to continually conquer and exploit, increasingly for themselves, their kith and kin, their businesses and corporates.
• The political leaders reduce the environment to just one dimension: the ecological-biological dimension. They completely ignore the sociocultural dimension, the socioeconomic dimension and the time dimension of the environment. It is in these three dimensions that the most formidable causes of environmental decay and collapse reside and manifest themselves
• Unfortunately, the political leaders continue to blame the poor and needy for all the environmental decay and collapse. Or else God and Nature are evoked to explain the environmental decay and collapse.
• Most political leaders of the world have not adequately made the environment a political issue. In campaigns for political office they never articulate and clarify the steps they will take to improve the quality of the environment for all
• In Uganda the political leaders are pursuing development assisted by countries that prefer grass (oil palm and sugarcane) to natural forests. The 10,000 hectares of natural forests of Kalangala Island of Lake Victoria have been felled and sold as timber.

Instead oil palm grass plantation have been established. In Bunyoro, the Bugoma Forest game corridor has been replaced with sugarcane grass. The era of revival if the grass culture is proliferating environmental decay and collapse. It is being exacerbated by what appears to be government preference for revamped nomadic pastoralism in areas that are historically, biologically, culturally and agroecologically for settled Bantu and Luo communities of indigenous Ugandans.

For God and My Country

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