“EMBRACE CULTURAL NORMS AND COMBAT FINANCIAL CHOCKS TO PROMOTE CLIMATE JUSTICE,” ENVIRONMENTALISTS PROPOSE

Participant in the Luigi Giusani Foundation and Oxfam funded climate justice project in group photo after the dialogue.

By Morish Dramadri

Arua city

Environmental experts in West Nile have sighted inadequate resource allocation for the sector as the major setback in the strides for climate justice in most districts within the region.

West Nile has over the years made struggles in ensuring restoration of its vastly destroyed vegetation cover due the influx of the refugees with support from the various Non-governmental organizations especially in the settlements with millions of trees planted but survival rate has remained a concern.

In a climate justice dialogue by Luiji Giusani Foundation for the three benefiting districts of Madi Okollo, Terego and Yumbe in Arua city on Friday, Fred Buzu Asi the community services officer from the Office of the Prime minister in Bidibidi refugee settlement braved the districts on the enforcement of the existing environmental laws.

“Environment is a cross-cutting issue, how do you enforce these laws in refugee settlements to ensure that at least the environment is conserved, at one point we were so much talking about Kaveras, now the bottles, now we have issues to do with electronic wastes, what are the conditions in our districts in terms of environment?,” Buzu questioned.

Yumbe district Environment Officer, Andama Swaibu Solo however denunciated the little enforcement of the environmental laws to the limited resources allocated for the sector by government.

“Government has established this department to do community outreach and programming but when you look at the IPF budget, water gets 1.5bn shillings per year but environment and natural resources gets only 120million shillings yet environment supports all these departments, this now comes up to down because of the inadequate personnel, people now just sit in office, “ Solo disclosed.

Meanwhile Terego district forest officer Tabule Magnum believed that climate justice strides in West Nile can be possible through revival and respect of cultural norms.

“Culturally some of these things can be managed, there are some tree species that culture has stopped people from cutting they attribute it to the cultural norms, and if you say this tree like shea nut if you cut it you will not produce, people will not cut it and in some swamps they say we have our small god here, and people will not dig in the swamps,” Tabule said.

Statistics from the forestry department of Madi Okollo district indicates that 99% of the rural population depend on natural resources i.e water and forest for their survival.

Madi Okollo district senior Education Officer Julius Ewaju called for traditional support of the society towards environmental justice.

“In traditional society, certain trees were cherished to be planted either because they were medicinal or because in some culture they were respected as having certain impact, this was one of traditional support to the society and this needs to be redone,” Ewaju proposed.

West Nile region has suffered impact of climatic and environmental injustice through frequent, intense and prolonged dry spell, floods and increased temperatures.