Charities aid Uganda in battling eco-changes
CHARITIES from Wales are helping people adapt their lifestyles in one of the countries most affected by climate change.
Tonight, in the first of a series of S4C programmes looking at the impact of changing climate conditions on communities round the world, Professor Siwan Davies, of Swansea, visits Uganda.
There she meets communities that are being educated about the environment and are adapting their lifestyle to protect their communities and their livelihoods.
Prof Davies said: “Uganda is one of the countries that are being hit hardest by climate change, and although the country’s own contribution to global greenhouse gases is very small, the impact of global warming causes great problems in the country. Drought and rain pattern are the main problems, but they’re also suffering as a result of deforestation.”
The Ugandan population is likely to double every 20 years and will need to meet the demand for land to grow more crops. However, cutting trees to create more space is causing problems, as the academic explains; “The canopy of leaves protects crops and the roots absorb water when there is heavy rainfall. This shortfall of trees results in landslides that wash the crops away, can destroy villages, and kill people, in some cases.
“Agriculture is Uganda’s main income and if it fails there is no food and no income. The men leave for the cities to look for work and they often do not come back.”
However, by educating communities about the importance of planting and nurturing trees, and adapting to their changing environment, they are already seeing positive results, and the thanks is partly down to support from Wales.
The life of people in Mbale is improving as a result of the work done by Welsh charities such as Pont from Pontypridd, Hub Cymru Africa and Size of Wales.
The Welsh Government funds a project called Plant, run by Size of Wales and gives Mbale a tree to plant for every child born or adopted in Wales. The aim is to plant 10 million trees, and since the scheme was launched in 2014 around half of the target has been achieved.
Mbale also receives support from the Welsh Government to teach the children and the community how to plant and look after the trees and about the benefits for the planet. While visiting a school in Mbale, Prof Davies received a very warm welcome from the pupils and a special performance about what they had learned.
“The Mbale children treated me like a queen, all because of the help they have received from Wales to plant trees and to educate them about their environment,” says Prof Davies, who is from Newport in Pembrokeshire but is currently living in Maine.