Africa's Pearl Uganda

Silverback Gorilla in the Bwindi Inpeneratable Forest Uganda

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'For magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life - plant, bird, insect, reptile and beast - for vast scale ... Uganda is truly the pearl of Africa.' These were the observations of Sir Winston Churchill recorded early this century, and happily they are as true today as they were all those years ago - the pearl still glows.

For some 20 years, however, the glow was almost extinguished by the horrors of the successive regimes of Milton Obote, Idi Amin, and then Obote again - two decades of darkness that saw a million Ugandans die. Most casualties came about as a result of a vicious ethnic struggle and the war against Tanzania, but some 300 000 people died at the hands of Amin and Obote and their torturers. The present government under President Yuweri Museveni took over less than a decade ago, and the only reminders of those 'dark days', as they are often described, are the vultures in the streets of Kampala - the birds were quick to exploit the bounty of human flesh during the war years and they have stayed on, gleaning the waste of the city - and some surviving shell- and bullet-pocked buildings.

Uganda's turnaround from tragic remains in the mid-1980s to what is now often described as the economic miracle of East Africa, is a source of inspiration for a continent chronically short of success stories. Under President Museveni and his government, Uganda has become one of the most stable countries in the whole region. The government has also invited many prominent members of the former regimes to return and share in the reconstruction of the country, the old kingdoms of Uganda are being re-established as a sign of the government wanting everyone to be involved in the running of the country, a new constitution has been set up, and a general election successfully negotiated.

With a freeing-up of the economy, Ugandans have gone back to work with a will. There is considerable foreign investor interest in the country and international aid agencies have set up shop in a big way because of the positive approach of the government and the people. Furthermore, a new generation of Ugandan Asians is returning to reclaim and redevelop properties and businesses confiscated by Idi Amin in the early 1970s. Also, major agricultural industries such as tea, cotton and sugar are being re-established. According to the Third World Network organization, Uganda is one of the few countries growing environmentally friendly tea and cotton, because it is produced by peasant farmers using few or no fertilizers and no irrigation.

The immediate proof of all this new-found confidence and industry can be seen in the building boom in the capital, Kampala, and other urban centers.

As part of this major economic push, the Ugandan government is concentrating on the world's number one growth industry, tourism. The Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Brigadier Moses Ali speaks of the government's 'ten-year master plan for tourism development' which has the full co-operation and support of the United Nations Development Programme and the World Tourism Organization. As part of the plan, tourist facilities across the country are being improved, new hotels and lodges being built and existing ones refurbished. A hotel training school has been established at Jinja for everyone involved in the industry, and the national air carrier, Uganda Airlines, is expanding its network.

The strategy is beginning to work, and impressively so. From a grand zero just a few years ago, some 150 000 tourist and business arrivals were recorded in 1994. In 1995 the figure topped 250 000.

Quite naturally, just as the main push is to make tourism a mainstay of the national economy, so is there a push to look after the goose that lays the golden egg - the country's prodigious diversity of wildlife and spectacular natural beauty.
About a quarter of Uganda is under water - this includes part of Africa's largest body of fresh water, Lake Victoria, a string of other lakes in the Western Rift Valley, a vast system of wetlands, and the Nile which begins its 6 695-kilometre journey to the Mediterranean Sea at the northern shores of Lake Victoria and Lake Albert. Add to this great mountain chains such as the Ruwenzoris (the fabled Mountains of the Moon), and the Virungas (shared with Rwanda and Zaïre), volcanoes and crater lakes, tropical rainforest 'jungle', the great Murchison Falls on the Nile, and by contrast, stretches of semi-desert on the Sudan/Kenya border.

Packed into this land-locked country are about half the surviving mountain gorillas in the world, troops of endangered chimpanzees, the largest concentration of other primate species on the continent, spectacular birdlife and all the other big game of Africa.

It is clear, then, that there is much to conserve in Uganda, and in order to achieve this the authorities are streamlining the management system for the country's network of national parks and other conservation areas, as well as tourist facilities. Ignatius Nakishero, a senior official with the Uganda Tourist Board, told me that the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities had been restructured to include, among others, special Departments of Tourism Development and of Licensing and Inspectorate, the latter to ensure the establishment and maintenance of international standards for all tourist facilities. At the same time, the existing Game Department is being rationalized and merged with the Uganda National Parks Board to form a single conservation body, the Uganda Wildlife Authority. All this is being done with the help and advice of a bevy of international agencies and individual consultants.

At the moment about six per cent of Uganda is under some form of conservation, but many of the existing indigenous forest areas are being incorporated into the protected area system, eventually to bring the total area of conservation to about 12 per cent.

As is so in a growing number of African countries today, Uganda follows a philosophy of sustainable utilization of its natural resources, with people development and involvement as a priority in conservation and ecotourism.

There are some interesting, if not enigmatic, situations in some of Uganda's National Parks. For example, a drift along the Kazinga Channel between Lake Edward and Lake George in the Queen Elizabeth National Park will reveal, apart from some of the most spectacular wetland birding in Africa and extraordinary concentrations of hippo and elderly buffalo bulls who have retired to Kazinga, local villagers using the Channel for fishing, collecting drinking water and for doing their laundry.

Also, right on the lake shore in the Lake Mburo National Park is a thriving fishing village, where locals catch and dry substantial quantities of fish for home consumption and for sale outside the park. (The authorities, however, are trying to encourage these villagers to resettle on the other side of the lake.)

Added to such informal examples of the limited and controlled use of the national parks system by local communities, is the development at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. This pristine habitat is the home of Uganda's surviving mountain gorillas and is devoid of human beings, but for park officials and tourists. There are two habituated family groups of gorillas in Bwindi, and tourists wishing to go on trail to track the gorillas need to acquire a permit for US$250. Exactly 20 per cent of this, goes directly to the local authority for the development of schools, clinics, community centers and so on for local communities neighboring the park. This, as Bwindi Warden Byekwaso Blasio points out, 'makes every member of the community a gorilla guard'. Apart from the indirect environmental education that flows from community involvement, a network of Wildlife Clubs has been established across the country at all schools, primary and secondary, giving pupils an opportunity not only to learn more about environmental conservation, but also often to have 'hands-on' experience on field trips. This, says Minister Moses Ali, 'ensures the future of environmental conservation in Uganda, as these young people, having an advantage their parents never had, will know the importance of wildlife and wild places by the time they get to run the country'.

The leaders and opinion-makers of today, however, are not leaving it to their youngsters to sort out. Officials concerned with the environment from various government ministries, non-governmental organizations (both local and international), and even environmental journalists from all three branches of the media meet on a regular basis to look at ways of improving communication between them and of spreading the environmental message to everyone from government down to the person in the street. These meetings often also include counterparts from Kenya and Tanzania, so it is truly an East African movement.

But Uganda is not without its environmental problems and, in the countryside outside the formally protected conservation areas, there is widespread environmental degradation. Professor Steven Njuguna, until recently Programme Director for the World Conservation Union (the IUCN) in Nairobi, and now a private consultant, attributes the degradation to human population growth which has led to intensified agricultural activity and, in turn, to natural habitat destruction, over-grazing, fragmentation of natural systems and the consequent loss of biological diversity.

The threat to Uganda's biological wealth is a matter of world concern, for after Zaïre, the country has the highest diversity of species of flora and fauna in Africa and the ninth highest in the world.

A more recent problem is pollution. Professor Njuguna says that this, too, is a direct result of the burgeoning human population, with concomitant increases in not only the agricultural sector, but also industry, leading to an overloading of natural systems with pollutants.

One of the major and most obvious manifestations of this is the water hyacinth on Lake Victoria. Water hyacinth, says Professor Njuguna, originated in South America, where its use as a decorative plant in ornamental ponds led to its spread around the world, including similar ponds in East Africa. It escaped from these man-made pools into the river system, thence into Lake Victoria. The lake is of vital economic importance to the three countries which share it (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania) as not only are its waters an abundant provider of fish for food and a venue for international tourism, but its waters also power the turbines at the Owen Falls Dam on the Nile, which in turn supply energy to both Uganda and Kenya.

Increased chemical run-off into the lake from spreading agricultural lands, industrialization and urban sprawl, makes a productive breeding ground for the water hyacinth which, under good conditions, can double its mass in just eight days. There are mechanical, biological and chemical ways of dealing with the hyacinth but, as Professor Njuguna points out, the governments of the three countries involved cannot concur on what to do. Although Uganda has accepted biological control - introducing organisms which attack the weed - as the way forward, Kenya and Tanzania disagree. And although all accept mechanical means of control, this is regarded as the least effective solution as it means physically hauling the weed out of the water, allowing it to dry on the banks of the lake and then burning it, which in itself leads to air pollution.

The hyacinth has already blocked most of the sheltered bays and inlets around the lake, and is spreading down the river systems, notably the Nile, where it has blocked the Owen Falls Dam, thus affecting power generation. As Njuguna stresses, 'if agreement is not reached soon and a firm decision taken by all three countries, it will be too late'. That both Uganda and Kenya are signatories to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and have ratified the Convention, gives hope that appropriate steps will eventually be taken.

Another problem area is that of poaching, not only of endangered species such as gorillas (it does still happen) and chimpanzees, but also hardwood. However, the government is fully aware of these problems and with the help of organizations such as TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce) it is doing its best to get on top of the situation.

Uganda deserves to realize its full potential, especially in the quest for sustainable and profitable nature-related tourism. It has many problems to solve and, above all, it has to avoid reverting to the sectarian interests that contributed to the human tragedies of the recent past. It is one of the most exciting countries I have visited for a long time. To find such a spirit of industry and enterprise, such a determination by all concerned (certainly all those with whom I had any contact), to get the country back on its feet and working again, and to meet a people who are almost universally cheerful, especially after what they have gone through, is almost humbling. I sense that with that sort of spirit, and perhaps with a little help from their friends, the Ugandans could make their country, the pearl of Africa, not just glow, but shine like a beacon for other countries to follow.

Uganda

An East Africa country of fertile upland plateau and mountains, Uganda has outlets to the sea through Kenya and Tanzania. Its history from independence until 1986 was one of ethnic strife. Since 1986, under President Museveni, peace has been restored and steps taken to rebuild the economy and democracy.

CLIMATE
Altitude and the influence of Lake Victoria moderate Uganda's equatorial climate. Spring is the wettest season.

ENVIRONMENT
Uganda's priority is economic reconstruction, but ecological issues are not ignored. Construction on a huge hydro-electric power station on the Kabalenga Falls was cancelled recently following strong environmental objections to the choice of site.

TOURISM
The tourist industry is recovering with the return of stability. Visitors are mainly high-spending independent travelers. Major attractions are Uganda's lakes and mountains, notably the rugged Ruwenzori range, better known as the Mountains of the Moon.

PEOPLE
The predominantly rural population consists of 13 main ethnic groups. Traditional animosities, manipulated by ex-presidents Amin and Obote, underlie the ethnic conflict which has marred Uganda's history. Since 1986, President Museveni has worked hard for reconciliation. In 1993, he allowed the restoration of Uganda's four historical monarchies.

EDUCATION
Education is not compulsory and all schools charge fees. Only 10% of pupils go on to secondary school.

HEALTH
The health system, badly hit by war and the loss of foreign personnel, is slowly being rebuilt. AIDS-related illness is a major problem in some areas.

CRIME
Crime levels are far lower than in neighboring Kenya, although theft in Kampala is a growing problem. Uganda now has one of the best human rights records in Africa.

RESOURCES
Mineral resources are varied but barely exploited. Uganda has sizeable copper deposits. The mines, closed under Obote, are now being re-opened. Gold and cobalt mining are also due to resume and oil exploration is under way. Hydro-electric output is being expanded, notably at Owen Falls, with the aim of replacing 50% of oil imports.

ECONOMICS AND AID

STRENGTHS Coffee brings in about 93% of export commodities. Potential for more export crops. Road system is being repaired. Pro-investment policies.

WEAKNESSES Recent ethnic conflict has left a generation lacking in skills. Coffee vulnerable to world price fluctuations. High transportation costs.
Aid, mainly from the World Bank and the IMF, has been rising since 1986, encouraged by Uganda's adoption of economic liberalization and private sector investment policies. Aid has focused on balance of payments support and the rehabilitation of the key transport sector.
Uganda has a small but growing middle class. Those close to the government form the wealthiest group.

WORLD AFFAIRS
Relations with Sudan and Rwanda are strained. Internal conflicts in both countries have resulted in a large influx of refugees into Uganda. Occasional border tensions have led to incursions by the Zaire military. Relations with Tanzania and Kenya are improving; the three nations are discussing reforming the former East African Community.

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