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MUSEVENI: Greed greatest danger to environment

 

Museveni outlines Uganda’s plans in Nairobi. PHOTOS PPU

Nairobi, Kenya | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has confirmed Uganda’s commitment to conserving her water resources at the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference in Nairobi on Monday.

In his address, he outlined measures Uganda is taking to sustain the continent’s oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. Half a dozen heads of State and Government, several governors and mayors of various global cities and heads of international organizations are among 17,000 participants from 185 countries attending the conference.

Museveni said the greatest challenge to a sustainable blue economy are soil erosion, pollution, population pressure, bad farming practices like cultivation on steep slopes and need to politically appease the population, hence failing to enforce certain regulations.

“In Uganda people are cutting forests for firewood while in North America people are doing it out of greed. In the case of Europe and other parts of the world, the danger to the environment is greed,” he told delegates.

He however said that Africa can only tackle these issues by pushing an industrialization agenda.

“We must look at increasing electricity output and create jobs in industries. You will not stop forest encroachment for example by farmers if you do not offer them alternative employment,” Museveni told the delegates.

He said, Uganda is committed to tackling these challenges. “We are discouraging our people from cultivating on steep gradient areas to combat soil erosion and eventual silting of our rivers, and avert disasters like landslides,” he said.

“Our government has also embarked on a campaign to protect vegetation at least 200 metres to the lake shores or 50 metres to the river banks. We are also convincing wetland encroachers to vacate while offering them a modest compensation.”

Host Kenyatta with delegates. PHOTO PPU

Accidents on lakes

Museveni is in Nairobi two days after a cruise boat capsized on Lake Victoria, killing over 30.  He has in the past year also deployed the army to help regulate fishing on the lake.

“We have started a war on poor fishing practices on our waters. For now, we are relying on rudimentary methods to patrol the waters but we shall advance with installation of surface radars to enable satellite monitoring,” he said, adding,”We shall also require electronic registration of all vessels operating on our waters. This way, we shall know who is on the water and what they are doing. We must, for example, ask how many people should be fishing in a square kilometre?”

Kenyatta pledges

Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta said he was optimistic the conference will see nations commit to innovative and transformative ways of using and sustaining our oceans, seas, lakes and rivers.

“Unless our environmental riches are protected, there can be no lasting prosperity for any of us. The Blue Economy binds us to a common destiny,” Kenyatta said.

“Oceans are the heart of our planet, they contain 97 percent of the Earth’s water, supply nearly half the oxygen we breathe, absorb over a quarter of the carbon dioxide we produce and regulate the weather and temperature. I am convinced that for the sake of the present & future generations, & for the continued viability of our ecosystems, we have to envision a different future and a different model for the blue economy.”

He pledged to adopt appropriate policies, strategies and mechanisms to harness the blue economy, confront, head-on, the challenge of waste management and plastic pollution, ensure responsible and sustainable fishing, and ensure safety and security in the high seas.

 

 

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