Environment in Uganda Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This Environment in Uganda Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

A decade after achieving independence from Britain in 1962, the Republic of Uganda began a 14-year period marked by dictatorial governance, civil war, mass murders, atrocities, and extensive human rights abuses that sapped the country of both human and physical resources. By the end of that period, some 400,000 Ugandans had lost their lives. In 1987, many young Ugandans came under the influence of Joseph Kony, who further drained the country of its resources by recruiting soldiers for what he called The Lord’s Resistance Army. Kony’s tactics involved kidnapping children between the ages of eight and 12 and coercing them to be soldiers by threatening their lives and the lives of their families. Even after Kony was expelled, he continued to reinforce this children’s army from neighboring Sudan. International organizations are currently involved in a massive effort to rescue and rehabilitate these children and bring an end to Kony’s influence in Uganda. By the 1990s Ugandans had begun to recover politically and economically, dispensing with political parties to elect a new president and legislature.

Uganda’s abundant natural resources include sizable deposits of copper and cobalt, hydropower, limestone, and salt. Nearly 26 percent of Uganda’s land area is arable, and 82 percent of the work force is engaged in some form of agriculture. The abundant rainfall and fertile soils make it easy to grow a variety of products. Coffee is the major export crop, accounting for the lion’s share of export revenue. Since 1986, international agencies have been assisting the Ugandan government in economic reform. In 2000, Uganda qualified for debt relief through funding from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative and the Paris Club. The return of exiled Indian-Ugandan entrepreneurs has also had a positive affect on the Ugandan economy.

With a per capita income of $1,700, Uganda is ranked 190th in world incomes. Income disparity exits, with the richest 10 percent holding more than one-fifth of the country’s wealth and the poorest 10 percent sharing only four percent of resources. Over a third of Ugandans live in poverty, and nearly onefifth of the population is seriously undernourished. The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Reports rank Uganda 144 out of 232 countries on general quality-of-life issues.

While landlocked, Uganda has an abundance of lakes and rivers that provide 36,330 square miles of water resources. The largest body of water is Lake Victoria, which Uganda shares with Tanzania. Uganda also borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC), Kenya, Rwanda, and the Sudan. The terrain of Uganda is comprised of an alluvial plateau rimmed by mountains. Elevations range from 621 meters at Lake Albert along the border of the DROC to 5,110 meters at Mount Stanley. Most of Uganda experiences a typically tropical climate that is marked by two dry seasons from December to February and from June to August. The climate of northeastern Uganda is semiarid.

The population of 28,195,754 faces major environmental health hazards, including an HIVIAIDS adult prevalence rate of 4.1 percent. Some 530,000 Ugandans live with this disease, and another 78,000 have died from it since 2003. Forty-four percent of the population do not have sustained access to safe drinking water, and 59 percent do not have access to improved sanitation. Therefore, Ugandans have a very high risk of contracting food and waterborne disease that include bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever and the waterborne disease schistosomiasis. In some areas, the population has a high risk of contracting African trypanosomiasis, popularly known as the “sleeping sickness.” Ugandans have a lower-than-normal life expectancy (52.67 years) and growth rate (3.37 percent), and higher-than-normal infant mortality (66.15 deaths per 1,000 live births) and death (12.24 deaths per 1,000 population) rates. Ugandan women produce an average of 7.1 children each. The female literacy rate of 60.4 percent makes disseminating health information somewhat difficult.

The wetlands of Uganda have been repeatedly drained to gain land for agricultural use. Agricultural mismanagement has also led to overgrazing with extensive loss of vegetation, which has produced soil erosion. The process of eradicating tsetse flies has led to toxic pollutants being released into the environment. Water supplies have been contaminated by industrial effluents, including mercury released in mining operations. Even though over one-fifth of land area is still forested, deforestation is occurring at a rate of 2 percent per year. Lake Victoria is experiencing water hyacinth infestation that interferes with marine life and the fishing industry.

Uganda is rich in wildlife, and the government has protected almost a fourth of land area. These areas include a vast network of national parks, wildlife reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, and community wildlife areas. Nevertheless, biodiversity and habitats are threatened by extensive poaching. Of 345 identified mammal species, 20 are endangered, as are 12 of 243 bird species. In 2006, scientists at Yale University ranked Uganda 78 of 132 countries on environmental performance, above the comparable income and geographic groups. The overall ranking was decreased by the poor showing in environmental health.

The 1995, Ugandan Constitution established the right to a clean environment and created the Ministry of Water, Land, and Environment, which is the governing body charged with promoting sustainable development and protecting the environment. Specifically, under the framework of the National Environment Plan, the ministry implements and enforces laws and polices relating to the management of land, water, forestry, and wetlands and to weather and climate, and atmospheric pollution. The ministry also provides oversight for three statutory bodies: The National Environment Authority, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation, and the Uganda Land Commission.

Uganda participates in the following international agreements on the environment: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, and Wetlands.

Bibliography:

Central Intelligence Agency, “Uganda,” World Factbook, www.cia.gov;
Timothy Doyle, Environmental Movements in Minority and Majority Worlds: A Global Perspective (Rutgers University Press, 2005);
Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom, Africa and the Middle East: a Continental Overview of Environmental Issues (ABC-CLIO, 2003);
Valentine Udoh James, Africa’s Ecology: Sustaining the Biological and Environmental Diversity of A Continent (McFarland, 1993);
Uganda Ministry of Water, Land, and Environment, https://www.mwe.go.ug/;
United Nations Development Programme, “Human Development Report: Uganda,” hdr.undp.org (cited April 2006);
World Bank, “Uganda,” Little Green Data Book, worldbank.org (cited April 2006).