Smarter
Living with William Odinga Balikuddembe
I
was in office last week when a young man I supervised a few months ago during
internship sent a message that disaster had struck Bududa again. River Tsuume
had burst its banks and was raking havoc through some villages on the slopes of
Mt. Elgon. This would leave over 40 people dead and many injured. In 2010 about
150 people were killed and over 10,000 displaced under similar circumstances.
I
have supervised several journalism students over the years and not many have
been as impressive as Busein Samilu, now in his last year of the Mass
Communication bachelor’s degree course at the Islamic University in Uganda.
Samilu’s main interest is politics. But with disaster falling in the
neighbourhood, any journalist would naturally find him or herself there – even
our audience is mostly attracted to sudden occurrences – news.
The
Bududa story would normally pass off as an environmental disaster – heavy rains
on a volcanic slope; gushes, rolling boulders, falling trees, crumbling houses,
and wails! But a combination of recklessness and inaction makes it a human
error and therefore a political story as well. Samilu should be able to enjoy
environmental reporting from this angle.
I
have covered the environment beat for over 15 years. My first environmental
stories were lamentations – crying over pollution of our water and air,
degradation of wetlands, deforestation, endangered species and so on. With more
exposure to science, however, I got more interested in presenting the problem
but also the possible solutions— my stories became more positive.
Let us understand Bududa a bit. These
areas were originally well forested. As people continued to demand more food
and energy from the land they subsequently undermined the forest cover.
Volcanic soils are soft. When you take away the trees that would hold them
firm, you are inviting them to give way during rains. The first blander was for
the local people to take the unwise decision of recklessly managing their
environment.
In
the recent scenario, Samilu informs me, almost all the people who were swept
away by the mudslides, had built on the river’s banks. Those who were a safe
distance away from Tsuume were not affected.
OK.
The problem is already there – the population has grown and the people continue
to almost entirely live off natural resources – so what should government do?
There is the option of re-settling the victims. But when this was decided in
2010, it was partially done, as the Ministry of Finance did not release some
UGX32.8bn for the project, according to reports. Resettlement is what the
government is saying again, and the land they are talking about to resettle
people on in Bulambuli district is disputed.
This
approach is simply reactionary. It does not provide solid ground for dealing
with natural disasters (and
unnatural disasters as some of these are clearly caused by human error).
Degradation
of Mt. Elgon continues and therefore landslides will intensify. The Kyoga basin
frequently floods and the Iteso suffer, Karamoja experiences long dry spells
and people there starve and die. In the Albertine Rift, the rate at which River
Semuliki burst her banks and ravages the land due to extensive environmental
degradation has been increasing over the years.
While
our population continues to increase, and disasters intensify, the land we
occupy is inelastic. The best thing to do is to deal with the problem, not to
run away from it. Can we find a way of restoring the vegetation of Bududa and
let people use their land in a way that is in harmony with nature? And this
should apply elsewhere.
It
starts with investing in human resource – in building people’s basic
understanding of how nature works and the best way to relate with it.
Resettlement
of Bududa victims should only be viewed as a short term solution, not a long
term approach to human settlement. Unfortunately our politics only works in a
reactionary way – and even there the performance is pathetic.
Thanks Odinga, I here you loud and clear. As a people we seem to have failed to engage the communities we hail from to appreciate the risks of our actions. Like you rightly put it, the damage is done, lives lost so the first thing is securing the safety of the survivors - which is under way.
ReplyDeleteMost important, develop along term plan to deal with such catastrophes, with preventative actions, restoration, but also being deliberate in settling people in the right places.
Our biggest undoing has been our failure to respect the very laws we put in place on managing mountainous areas, river banks, wetlands and wildlife conservation areas. If only these institutions were enabled (no politics, reasonable resource allocation and accountability mechanisms that focus on the result - not the output) to do their job. It is likely the impacts of these natural disasters would be contained.