One of my favourite animated movies of all time is ‘Dr. Suess’ The Lorax’ centres its storyline o the side effects of deforestation on mother earth. In the movie, all the trees had been cut down and oxygen was sold as frequently as we sell the water, we purchase for our water dispensers. The climate had changed significantly and though it’s easy to take comfort in the fact that this is simply fiction, our reality is not far from that truth today.
Our environment comprises all living and non-living components and their interactions. In layman’s terms, the environment simply refers to our surroundings. Environmental conservation is the way of protecting the environment and natural resources on the individual, organizational as well as governmental levels. We have been under attack for several years now but while we can blame the state of our environment on everything else, we have become our own worst enemy. One of the highest threats we are facing as occupants of the planet earth is the threat of climate change, it is no wonder world powers are putting all their energies into impacting climate change. Environmental conservation is one step in the right direction. It is one of the core steps that need to be taken to battle climate change and global warming. With these pending threats, we are urged to act fast and do anything to protect our planet and conserve its natural resources so that every living thing can have an improved quality of life.
THREATS TO OUR ENVIRONMENT TODAY
Deforestation and forest degradation.
This is the purposeful clearing of forested land. In the past 20 years, Uganda has lost over a million hectares of tree cover—nearly a third of the country’s total. You might have noticed recently that there have been reports of drought in different parts of Uganda. According to a report from Reuter.com, more than 200 people died from hunger in July 2022 in northeastern Uganda due to a prolonged drought. Droughts are usually brought as an effect of deforestation and erratic rainfalls have become more frequent due to massive deforestation.
Pollution
With the increased construction of factories, pollution has been an inevitable consequence of industrialisation. While pollution is not limited to air alone, we must note that water, noise and land pollution are huge threats to our environment today. Air is polluted by releasing harmful fumes from industries, charcoal burning, plastics, and exhaust fumes from vehicles, filling the air with toxic particles. Our water is polluted with wastes from industries, houses and human refuse. The land is polluted by littering.
Global warming
The weather is changing, it’s raining in the dry season and vice versa. Global warming impacts everything from energy use to water availability to crop productivity to temperatures throughout the world. Global warming is the ongoing increase in global average temperature and its effects on Earth’s climate system. It is obvious that the most significant evidence of global warming would be the climate change that we are experiencing on a day to day.
Damage to wetlands.
Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil. One of the biggest threats to wetlands especially in Uganda today is development. Many people have constructed their households or even factor is in wetland-designated areas causing floods. Because of the occupation of wetlands, the wetland-to-land coverage has significantly reduced.
WAYS TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.
Reducing On Our Waste.
We need to make wasting our resources unacceptable in all aspects of our life. Every product we buy has an environmental footprint and could end up in a landfill. It’s close to impossible to ignore the impact of plastic pollution on our water bodies that have also had a negative impact on the quality of our water as a whole.
Recycling is a great way for us to reduce the number of new materials that are manufactured, and upcycling is a creative way to make old items into something more valuable. It’s estimated that a third of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted. Reducing our waste could even extend to eating up our leftovers and using any ingredients to make interesting meals.
Reafforestation
Planting trees is a great way to solve our drought situation. Truth is, our vegetation and trees are important to impact our environment positively. Reforestation is the natural or intentional replanting of existing forests and woodlands (forestation) that have been depleted, usually through deforestation but also after clearcutting.
Trees alone help clear the air and influence the weather, they play a significant role in balancing oxygen levels in the atmosphere. Forests help in preventing global warming.
Water Conservation
Water is a major part of the environment around us. With the number of water bodies like lakes, rivers, oceans, ponds and seas_ all these provide a habitat for marine animals and water for our homes. Water conservation includes all the policies, strategies and activities to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, protect the hydrosphere, and meet the current and future human demand.
There is a limited amount of fresh water on this earth and therefore, we need to devise means that protect and conserve the water that we use in order not to run out.
Pollution Control
Pollution control is a form of environmental management that controls emissions and effluents into air, water or soil. Without pollution control, the waste products from overconsumption, heating, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation and other human activities, will degrade the environment.
Protection of wetlands
Wetlands provide values that no other ecosystem can. These include natural water quality improvement, flood protection, and opportunities for recreation. Our biggest contribution to protecting wetlands is to avoid development of infrastructure in wetland areas. In Uganda, the Wetlands Management Department (WMD) is mandated to manage wetland resources and its goal is to sustain the biophysical and socio-economic values of the wetlands in Uganda for present and future generations.
Waste Management
With waste being one of the largest threats to our country alone, waste management is the most important action we can make to conserve our environment. Waste management includes all the activities that are required to manage waste from the point of collecting the waste to recycling and monitoring.
