Stranded birds, Robert Kigongo
On Sunday night I was returning to my home in Uganda’s capital when I saw hundreds of egrets stranded along Entebbe, Jinja and Kampala roads after the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) chopped down all the trees that had served as their roosts and breeding places.
This unearthly scenario is not very different from the demolition of people’s homes in Kampala’s Lusanja village.
The KCCA’s infrastructure development planners must be cognisant of the fact that people live in the same ecosystem as other living creatures like birds.
This particular regrettable case exposed a knowledge gap among the Kampala council officials that the city is not only for humans but other habitants too!
When God created this world he didn’t create man alone and he didn’t instruct man to destroy ecosystems.
Ecological balance is very necessary for all habitants — humans, birds, trees and all other forms of life.
The destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems will result in humans facing catastrophes, including outbreaks of disease, as the climate crisis is showing us.
Most of the outbreaks of diseases, such as viral hemorrhagic fevers dengue fever, malaria, Chikungunya virus and West Nile fever, are as a result of degrading and destroying habitats.
Kampala’s residents have criticised the felling of the trees — and doing so before removing the egrets.
The KCCA has belatedly issued a statement saying it will relocate the egrets with the help of the Uganda WildLife Authority.
When I spoke to one of the city authority officials, he said the roots of some of the trees were breaking into the roads and that they were being cleared to make way for traffic lights.
He added: “I am sure the birds will find other trees, with time, on their own.”
The environmental law states for every tree you cut down, you must plant 10 more. I doubt this law is practised.
Even the trees donated ahead of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit by businessman Hamis Kiggundu have been cut down. He is not happy.
“It’s really sad seeing these KCCA employees poisoning and destroying these palm trees — We spent a lot of money and time buying, donating, planting and maintaining these royal palm trees across the entire city under their watch and supervision — with such impunitive acts unprosecuted we have a long way to develop as a country,” he wrote on X.
This eco-negligence is happening at a time when bird conservation networks are struggling to save a number of species.
The list of critically endangered birds in Uganda includes the shoebill; Fox’s weaver, Uganda’s only endemic bird; the grey-crowned crane, Uganda’s national symbol; the African grey parrot and the hooded vulture.
While we equally need the traffic lights to reduce the hours spent in traffic jams where we burn more carbon, we must safeguard the environment.
Prior research, communication with wildlife organisations and planning by the KCCA is needed before any commencement of work on the Kampala Institutional and Infrastructure Development Project. Environmental impact assessments should be included in this to protect green spaces.
Green spaces such as the railway grounds, Centenary Park, Constitutional Square, Sheraton Gardens and City Square have been encroached on. Hola la Uganda Zaabu! No wonder we are facing floods and endangered species.
The city administration, environmentalists and institutions such as the national Environment Management Authority must work together to reclaim some of the green spaces and plant more trees to work towards creating a carbon neutral greener city.
Infrastructure development can still happen without necessarily destroying the ecosystem.
Robert Kigongo is an environmentalist and a sustainable development analyst.