Raising Africa’s Voice

IN OCTOBER 2019, THE ROTARY CLUB OF Bugolobi asked me to talk on the environment and climate change. I looked forward to the opportunity. It would be the first time as an activist that I’d be addressing Ugandan professionals, many of whom were my parents’ age (I’m 24). The audience would be civic-minded middle-class men and women who could raise awareness about the climate crisis and put pressure on the government and the private sector. Or they could do exactly the opposite: resist any change they perceived as slowing down what they considered “development” or “progress,” and dismiss the concerns of the younger generation.

My presentation took about 20 minutes, after which the audience asked many questions. They seemed surprised to hear this information from someone so young who wasn’t an expert, but were pleased I’d helped them understand the urgency of the problem. At one point, a man said how puzzled he was that the ongoing degradation of the Amazon rain forest was widely condemned, even in Africa, and yet no one was talking about the destruction of the Congo Basin rain forest. As the meeting came to an end, his statement lingered in my mind.

Why weren’t Ugandans talking about what was happening in the Congo Basin rain forest, especially since the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in which about 60% of the rain forest lies, borders our country to the west? I