OpEd Editorial Columnists Commentary Letters Cartoon

Sensitise public on the value

of natural resource
Thursday, July 30, 2020 — updated on August 03, 2020

John Okiira

What you need to know:

The information can in uence decisions about wise use and

conservation of forests and other ecosystems by different
stakeholders across the country.
The information can be circulated through use of different
strategies at the grassroots such as through local councils,
parish chief, community development of cers at sub-county
level, among others.

Uganda is blessed with a wide range of natural resources and

diversity of natural habitats, species and genetic resources in its
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forests, which are the key to the reality of life on earth and provide
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potential for achieving economic progress if well governed and
utilized. The sustainableYes, management
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No resources should be
a concern of all nations.
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According to the Uganda Forestry Policy 2001, Uganda is one of the

most diverse countries in Africa, with 11 per cent and 7 per cent of
the world’s bird and mammal species respectively, in only 0.02 per
cent of the land area.
This biodiversity has a great intrinsic value. It is also important to
human health and wealth, for example, by providing traditional
plant medicines, a variety of ecosystems and species important in
the tourism industry, and potential opportunities for Ugandans to
adapt to local and global change.

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However, as a sector, the environment and natural resources faces

challenges that inhibit it from effectively contributing to this
sustainable development and enhance community resilience to
climate change shocks.
According to the 2019 Water and Environment Sector Performance
Report by the Ministry of Water and Environment, deforestation
remains a major challenge, which has in turn led to a decline of
forest cover from 24 per cent in 1990 to 12.4 per cent in 2015.
Uganda has an average annual loss of natural forest of 2 per cent. In
1994, wetland coverage on the surface area of Uganda was 15.6 per
cent, but over time, this has been reducing and is currently at 8.9
per cent.
Climate change shocks due to deforestation are already impacting
all parts of the country.

The declining levels of water in the Rwizi River, landslides in

Bududa and Bundibugyo, oods in Kasese, and the rising levels of
Lake Victoria have left many communities devastated and
vulnerable to hunger and disease. The country has also
experienced frequent and prolonged droughts; reduced erratic
rainfall, which is affecting agriculture production and food security.
The degradation of the environment and natural resources such as
forests and wetlands, has also greatly contributed to this climate
change crisis because most stakeholders at the grassroots
unsustainably cut down trees and degrade water catchments such
as wetlands, swamps due to lack of information on the economic
value of some of the natural resources.
Reputable environmentalists across the globe de ne economic
valuation as an attempt to put monetary values to environmental
goods and services or natural resource. It is a key exercise in
economic analysis and it results provide important information
about values of environmental goods and services.
The purpose of economic valuation is to determine people’s
preferences by assessing how much they are willing to pay (WTP)
or willing to accept (WTA) for given bene ts or certain
environmental attributes, for instance, to keep a forest, wetland and
swamp ecosystem intact.

Government agencies such as National Forestry Authority (NFA)

and National Environmental and Management Authority (Nema) to
some extent, have done environmental valuation for most of the
natural resources using different methods, but little effort has been
put by these agencies to disseminate widely the information to the
public and sensitising the communities on how to sustainably
extract these natural resources.
The information can in uence decisions about wise use and
conservation of forests and other ecosystems by different
stakeholders across the country.
The information can be circulated through use of different
strategies at the grassroots such as through local councils, parish
chief, community development of cers at sub-county level, among
others.
Mr Okiira is a research associate with the Advocates
Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE).

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