By Joshua Mutale.
Today Uganda joins the rest of the world to mark the World Environment Day which falls on every 5 June.
This day is designated by the UN to raise awareness of environmental issues amidst the growing concern for climate change conditions.
In Uganda main celebrations are being held in Rakai district under a local theme ‘35 Million People, Limited Resources, Consume with Care.”
Preliminary statistics from the 2014 national census, it is estimated that at an average annual growth rate of 3.03 per cent, Uganda’s population was projected to increase to 35.0 million in 2015 and to 47.4 million in 2025.
The celebrations locally are being championed by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) as the principal agency charged with the responsibility of coordinating, monitoring, regulating and supervising environmental management in the country, and uses this day to as a platform to raise national awareness of the need to take positive environmental action and serving as the ‘people’s day’ for doing something positive for the environment.
The day comes as NEMA an environmental watch dog is grappling with enforcement of the kaveera ban and importation of old vehicles which the NEMA boss Dr Tom Okurut says is dangerous to human health.
“The greatest environment challenge we have now in Uganda is management of Electronic waster, there over 500,000 metric tons of useless electronic gadgets waiting damping and if not carefully disposed off human health is at stake” explains Dr Tom Okurut the NEMA executive director.
It’s against such that officials at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) an international Conservation body are urging the public to all they can to conserve the environment.
According to WWF communicating specialist Eddy Oketch, WWF staff will mark the world environment day planting trees in Navugulu Earth Hour forest which is now under regeneration after it had been all shaved down by locals for farming.
“We need to engage the community and cooperates, not to simply plant trees but to grow trees and that is what we are exactly doing here. We should also be concern about our environment because climate change conditions like prolonged drought affect us all in discriminatively” Says Eddy Okecho.
By Joshua Mutale