Ecological Destruction: Where Will You Go When Nature’s Ride Ends?

Ugandans love rides. Whether it is the dusty boda boda weaving through potholes like it is dancing in a kadodi video, the creaking taxi loaded with school children, chickens, and hope, or that one old friend with a battered Subaru who always insists it is “just a sensor problem,” we associate progress with motion. Movement is life. It is like our Movement Bus! No wonder every campaign, promise, and deal is sweetened with the words “transport facilitation.”

We are treating our environment like a car whose engine we keep removing bolts from, then wondering why it no longer starts. We have removed forests like wipers during a car wash, dumped plastics into rivers like we are fueling a motorcycle with mineral water, and built in wetlands.

But now, as we race down the road of environmental destruction with a broken steering wheel, leaking oil, and no brakes, we must stop and ask: Where Will You Go When Nature’s Ride Ends?

Environment Running Out of Fuel

Our environment is no longer a free ride. It is a commuter taxi that has run out of fuel, yet the conductor is still shouting: “Ssebo ogenda? Ssebo ogenda?” And we have logged our forests like firewood was going out of fashion.

Data from the National Forestry Authority indicates that Uganda’s forest cover has fallen from 24% in 1990 to just 12.4% in 2023. It is as if someone declared a national war against trees. And we are winning, unfortunately!

In Bugisu, the once-lush Mt. Elgon slopes now slide into people’s kitchens every rainy season despite sustainable land management and restoration efforts by Mt. Elgon Project, an arm of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). In Bunyoro, forests are being replaced by sugarcane as if our national diet must now be either sugar or molasses. The irony is that while we chop down trees in thousands, we spend millions importing oxygen cylinders to prepare for respiratory emergencies. We are literally cutting our air supply and then queuing at the hospital wondering, “What happened to our respiration?”

And the wetlands? Once valued as sacred spaces for biodiversity, flood control, and spiritual reflection, they have now been turned into real estate. NEMA statistics show that more than 70% of urban wetlands in Uganda have been encroached upon. In Wakiso and Kampala, every waterway had either been converted into a car washing bay, a warehouse, or a pork joint until NEMA’s long arm of restoration started tightening the grip. We now see that many of Lubigi Wetland’s wounds have healed or healing with vegetation and birds doing a quick comeback.   

Restoration, Floods and Plastics

What is still a hiccup in the NEMA restoration efforts are the upcoming houses in the wetlands. When you ask someone why they are constructing a three-bedroom bungalow on a wetland, they reply: “Land is scarce.” Yes, land might be scarce because we have paved, grabbed, and drained every inch of the soft green sponges that once saved our cities from floods.

Now, every time it rains for just 30 minutes or even less, city residents begin arranging sandbags like they are preparing for the biblical flood. And when the water invades businesses or sitting rooms newspaper headlines scream: “Floods Disrupt Kampala Businesses, Homesteads.” No, my friend. That is the new normal. When you disrespect wetlands, they don’t get angry with you. They only care about getting even.

Then there is our toxic love affair with plastic. Uganda generates more than 600 tonnes of plastic waste daily, yet only between 6 and 10 percent of it gets collected and recycled. The rest finds its way into drainage channels, rivers, banana plantations, or somehow wraps itself around your ankles during morning walks. In fact, Lake Victoria, once a proud freshwater body, is now slowly becoming a liquid landfill. Research shows that one in every three fish in the lake contains some kind of micro-plastics. Soon, our tilapia may come pre-packaged with plastic as a national souvenir.

We are proudly poisoning our water sources and pretending that nature will forgive us. It will not. Nature is fair and patient, yes, but it is neither passive nor insensitive.

Climate Change

Meanwhile, climate change is no longer knocking. It kicked the door open and is now comfortably gazing at us in our bedrooms. Temperatures in Uganda have risen by 1.3°C since 1960. Rainfall patterns have become as unpredictable as LC 1 polls. In some areas, farmers are planting maize in February only for the rain to show up in May like a lazy cousin with excuses. At times, as it is now, rains come down with youthful vigour almost immediately at any time of the day. Crops wither because of excessive rains or drought, boreholes dry up, and our cows stare at us, and seem to say: “Eh, is this the pasture you promised?”

In Karamoja, climate-induced hunger haunts households like a shadow. Droughts now last longer, yet floods in Wakiso and the surrounding areas still sneak in like a Sunday guest who said they weren’t coming. In Kasese, floods regularly displace communities with the reliability of Uganda’s electricity supply. And in Kampala, each rainfall turns roads into swimming pools, complete with stranded cars and journalists reporting live in gumboots. Still, we call these things “natural disasters” when, in fact, they are manmade results of environmental negligence. We should know that our weather no longer has seasons…these are now mood swings. Alongside the arrogant floods, the Sun now has the personality of a village elder with a life-long grudge.

Nature Never Negotiates

Amidst all this chaos, we still act like the environment is a luxury. We think we can always negotiate with nature. But let us remember that Mother Nature doesn’t attend stakeholder meetings. She doesn’t respond to petitions. She acts, and acts decisively. And so we return to the uncomfortable question: Where Will You Go When Nature’s Ride Ends?

When the last tree is cut, when the last river dries, and when the last breeze turns into a dust storm, will you look for shelter in a plastic bag? Will you dig a borehole in a former wetland? Will you ask for rain in a WhatsApp group? Climate enthusiasts remind us that promises do not save humanity. We must, therefore, stop promising to act, but must start real actions.

When the forests are gone, the air chokes, and every drop of rain turns your roof into a water drum; when food becomes a monthly miracle and fresh water becomes currency; when you stand at the edge of a flooded wetland-turned-slum and ask how it got to this; truly, where will you go? Will you go to Mars? Mars isn’t ready for tenants, I believe. The Sahara doesn’t take bookings. Rwanda? Rwandans are busy planting trees and managing plastic bans. South Sudan? It’s already facing its own climate challenges. Dear Ugandan, there is no escape plan. This muddy, dusty, Sun-beaten, kaveera-filled land is our ride.

Time for Action

The time to act is now. Not tomorrow. Not in the next budget cycle, and not during the next disaster. We must begin to regrow our lost forests, protect what remains of our wetlands, reduce our addiction to plastic, and treat the environment with the kind of respect we reserve for our passports. If we don’t restore it, protect it, and sustain it, we won’t do rides any more. We will walk. Not in protest but in search of survival. On foot. In heat. Through floods.

So let us replant what we have uprooted. Let us clean what we have polluted. Let us respect the environment like our future depends on it, and sure it does. Or else, the only vehicles left will be wooden canoes paddling through what used to be taxi parks. And, yes, when Mother Nature finally parks her vehicle, removes the keys, and weakly says “I am done,” the only direction left for us to go will be…NOWHERE.

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