Amidst the increasing birthrates among the chimpanzee population in Uganda’s protected areas, there have been concerns of rapid loss of habitats which have increased incidences of human-wildlife conflicts along the protected areas. With the increased global temperature all over the world, Uganda has not been immune to such global warming calamities and these are likely to increase since the oil companies and banks have seen a great opportunity in causing climate change calamities.
It’s against this background CECIC, ORRA, Friends of Nature, and NAVODA through the support of 350 Africa mobilized and trained EACOP project-affected communities, including women, youth, and PWDs, in the 6 districts of Uganda on the importance of clean, sustainable, and affordable renewable energy. The training of the project affected persons was timely where there is too much destruction of nature in the Albertine region and with an estimated release of carbon dioxide of worth 35 tonnes from the EACOP, to put these emissions to check, more innovative measures to curb these emissions are key in striking balance between fossil fuels and conservation of the environment.
The communities were trained on the merits of using clean energy solutions for cooking and lighting. Modern cookstoves are key in putting up conservation measures because 90% of households in Uganda use firewood, charcoal (biomass) for cooking and this has greatly affected the environment as well as the forest cover.
The affected persons were trained on making briquettes from their kitchen waste so as to reduce the waste that is generated from their homes as well as tree cutting in the regions. Additionally, the community members present were taken through the process of solar installations and also educated on the dos and don’t while buying and installing solar products in their house.
Few of the PAPs present were not using solar but using local lamps and candles for lighting in their houses and they admitted that they were really facing challenges of the smoke which affected their sight and sometimes experienced respiratory issues as a result of smoke inhalation.
The training was concluded with a strong message from the participants requesting the government to invest more in renewable energy than in fossil fuels which, from experience, has proved to be more dangerous than the profit from oil.
Edwin Mumbere