It is difficult to convince a person who has spent their entire life in internally displaced persons camps to participate in environmental conservation activities. Orphans growing up during war and relying only on food rations. Traumatized people returning home and looking at trees only in terms of the products they can gain from them. People suffering from dependency syndrome where anything given to them is not enough.
It is difficult, but it is not impossible. I was two years old when the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency began in Uganda. I grew up in these camps and depended on food rations. I returned to my home and saw people decimate the forests and woodlands around them so they had enough fuel for fire to cook food and keep them warm. I also saw the potential for youth to make a change to this practice. But let me give you a bit more background first.
During the insurgency, government forces used a “semi-scorched earth policy”, clearing all vegetation along both sides of all highways, security roads and several kilometers outside all internally displaced persons camps to ensure that rebels trying to attack could be easily seen. The rebels (the Lord’s Resistance Army made infamous during the KONY2012 campaign) also occupied most forest reserves and conducted large-scale lumbering and charcoal production to exchange for ammunition with the Sudanese government. Some camps would be escorted by the army to produce charcoal as an income generating activity. Some of these forests, such as Agoro-Aguu CFR, are biodiversity hotspots according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
As guns became silent and people in the camps began resettling, climate changes such as heat waves and erratic rainfall led to water scarcity and a sense of hopelessness that there would be any change for the better. Crop harvest was poor, and afforestation projects failed miserably because of the weather and cost of operations. The returnees, who were depending on food rations, became engaged in large-scale trade of forest products in the woodlands and were not willing to hear anyone talk about sustainable utilization and reforestation, or even get involved in such projects.
The power of youth involvement and stewardship in Uganda’s landscapes sectors changed this perception and is at the center of my transformative story.
During the Youth session at the Global Landscapes Forum, I will tell you how I realized that youth have a natural curiosity about science and environment and how I capitalized on that to motivate them to undertake conservation practices in their community.
Train a youth about tree planting and you will see forest standing, train adults about tree planting and they will spend their training allowances and wait for another training. It is only at the GLF that you can understand the meaning of these words.
See you there!
By Otim Joseph
Otim Joseph is a thought leader at the youth session to be held at the Global Landscapes Forum at 9am CET November 16, 2013. (More details)
If you can’t make it to Warsaw, watch the event online at archive.globallandscapesforum.org/live-stream.
