Conserve Bugoma forest as Africa commences climate week
Bugoma plays a significant role in storing carbon, contributing to Uganda's efforts to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Op-Ed: As Uganda Joins the rest of Africa to commemorate Africa Climate week that started this week going through Saturday 6th September ahead of Africa Climate Summit 2 in Addia Ababa Ethiopia, it’s important to note that the ongoing activities of encroaching on Bugoma Forest Reserve with sugar cane growing, illegal logging, charcoal burning contributing much towards the release of carbon emissions which negatively impact biodiversity worsening climate change.
Under the theme accelerating Global Climate Solutions, the Ugandan government should work together with relevant organizations, stakeholders, civil society organizations and communities to restore and conserve Bugoma Forest reserve.
Forests like Bugoma regulate the global carbon cycle and mitigates climate change, and the continuous activities of destruction could be attributed to lack of sufficient information on thegreen economic alternatives that can be harnessed while protecting the forest.
Bugoma Forest is home to hundreds of tree species, many of them rare, and various animals, including chimpanzees, mangabeys, and hundreds of bird species.
It serves as the largest remaining natural tropical forest along the Albertine Rift Valley and is crucial as a wildlife migratory corridor between the Budongo and Semliki forests.And as a tropical forest, Bugoma plays a significant role in storing carbon, contributing to Uganda’s efforts to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Therefore,Destruction of the forest disrupts its ability to regulate local climate, affects water sources, contravening the Sustainable Development Goals 6,13 and 15 to which Uganda works under United Nation framework, to protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes under SDG 6 as Bugoma is a water catchment, taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts whereby it is paramount to protect forests as a climate stabilizer under SDG 13, SDG 15, to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
The author is Doreen Asasira, a concerned citizen.
Disclaimer: As UG Reports Media LTD, we welcome any opinion from anyone if it’s constructive for the development of Uganda. All the expressions and opinions in this write-up are not those of UG Reports Media Ltd. but of the author of the article.
Would you like to share your opinion with us? Please send it to this email: theugreports@gmail.com.
