Don’t Kill the Environment Messenger – Get the Message

By William Lubuulwa

Marabou stork – that bird almost everyone loves to hate. Tall. Bald. Grim-faced. An uninvited guest at weddings, rooftops, schools, religious centres, and everywhere in downtown Kampala.

These birds walk like they own the entire city and stare like they know our secrets. People say they are ugly – whatever this means. But the storks don’t care. They say the storks are loud. The birds say, “So are you.” Some want them killed or at least relocated…to Karamoja, Congo, or anywhere with fewer cameras and boda bodas.

But before we rush to give these birds one-way bus tickets, we might want to ask: why are they here in the first place?

Waste Managers on Duty

According to Dr. Barirega Akankwasah, Executive Director of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the marabou stork is not the rogue. It is the mirror. “The storks are not the bad ones. It is us the 45+ million Ugandans who are misbehaving, littering, and degrading the environment. Relocating them is like switching off the fire alarm instead of putting out the fire. We are killing the messenger,” he says.

And what a messenger it is: wings wide, beak long, posture presidential. The marabou stork is basically nature’s waste management officer, outside NEMA’s now expanded personnel structure. It doesn’t work on contracts, and it is not retained on allowances. It doesn’t strike. It simply shows up wherever there is garbage. In Uganda, this Pearl of Africa, it means the bird has a very long to-do list.

Experts tell us that Kampala alone generates more than 1,500 tonnes of solid waste every day. And guess what? Only about 50% of this waste is collected and managed. The rest is left behind – like that one ‘tired’ uncle at a party who refuses to return home. This leftover rubbish becomes buffet for the storks. Mango peels, chicken bones, posho bits, diapers, Rolex remains, name it. These birds eat all. They don’t judge. They just feast.

Ugandans, on the other hand, are doing the judging. We point fingers at the storks from the same window we just threw a polythene bag out of. We tweet angrily about birds, especially the dirty marabou stocks, while sipping soda and tossing the bottle behind our hedges. This is what I would call high-level environmental confusion.

Our Filth, Their Feast

When it floods in Kampala because the drainage is blocked with plastic, we blame the rain. When the marabou stork appears, we blame the bird. The truth is, if cleanliness is next to godliness, many Ugandans might be running in the opposite direction at unprecedented speed! According to the World Bank, Uganda loses more than UGX 389 billion every year to poor sanitation: blocked sewers, dirty water, disease outbreaks, and the ever-rising cost of pretending marabou storks are the problem.

The question should now be: Should we or should we not relocate the birds? Relocating the birds sounds noble until you ask the obvious questions that follow: To where? With what budget? Will they be taking their garbage supply with them? What if they come back with reinforcements? Well, relocating them would be like telling termites to leave your house while offering them more untreated wood. Or evicting mosquitoes early morning but leaving your water containers uncovered. Those small but irritating flies (or are they flies?) with piercing-sucking mouths will be back before sunset.

Change Starts at Home

Dr. Akankwasah says we need to stop fighting symptoms and start addressing causes. The marabou stork is just the messenger. The real villain is your half-tied garbage polythene thrown at the roadside. Your trench-dumped lunch leftovers. Your ‘someone-will-pick-it’ attitude. The bird doesn’t drop garbage. It only follows it. And we throw this garbage all over, forgetting that this practice is a very big environmental hazard.

Let us stop calling for the birds’ eviction and start managing our trash. Let us invest in real waste management: collection, recycling, composting, and citizen education. Let’s clean up not because a bird is watching but because we actually want to live in a healthier environment. The National Environment Act, Cap 181, gives all of us a duty to take care of our environment and enhance its health. And maybe – just maybe – someday, the storks will pack up and go. Not because we forced them, but because they are unemployed.

But we should not panic. We can do it. Those marabou storks are probably just wondering why Ugandans were choosing to disrespect the principle of peaceful coexistence!

Mr. Lubuulwa is the Senior Public Relations Officer at NEMA.