Green Options

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is launching a high-tech initiative in an effort to promote awareness, tourism, and gorilla conservation. The unique Friend a Gorilla project will launch on September 26th in Kampala.  Gorilla enthusiasts will now be able to watch, track and befriend real live gorillas from the comfort of their own home.   But wait - there’s more!

El Nino is blamed for changing rainfall patterns, and that, combined with inadequate harvests and increasing conflict has led to a drop in cereal production already affecting Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. This could increase the number of people relying on food aid.

A unique rhino conservation program in Uganda is helping local communities with an outreach program that recruits for job openings from surrounding villages, teaches job skills, and visits classrooms.

Rhino Fund Uganda is making a difference in the lives of people by integrating local communities with rhino conservation goals and educating them about responsible resource management. Established in 1997 with the objective of reintroducing the Southern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) to Uganda, RFU has created programs to help the community every step of the way. Recently, RFU celebrated the birth of the first rhino born in Uganda after 27 years of regional extinction - and the baby rhino has been named “Obama.”

Creating employment opportunities and providing job training

Uganda’s Agriculture Minister said that she regretted the fact that Ugandan citizens are still dying of hunger in a country that has enough crops to export to other parts of Africa. New national laws may be imposed that require every household to grow its own root crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes.

Ngorongoro World Heritage Site Under Threat

Thirty years after being listed as a World Heritage Sites the Ngorongoro Conservation area is in danger of being ‘deleted’ from the prestigious listing. This legendary wildlife-filled crater, is a  8,300 square kilometer part of Tanzania’s Serengeti.

The United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has set the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority very tight goals which must be met if Ngorongoro is to retain its World Heritage Sites listing.

In much of Europe, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are not used in food production and are not grown as crops. In pretty well the rest of the world, they are both widely grown and widely utilised. Why is there such a division?

Five farmers will appear in five advertisements, shown in five different states, each saying that they grow potatoes that Frito-Lay then turns into ‘local’ chips. Of course, each state gets to see only its own local advert, not the other four, which could rather spoil the impression …

The recent fall in grain prices across the developed world may have given the impression that food security isn’t a problem – but it is. There are more people not getting enough to eat than there were a decade ago.

At the same time as Botswana bans hunting close to its reserves and Kenya uses Maasai hunters to protect its lions, Uganda introduces commercial hunting into its Pian-Upe wildlife reserve in Uganda hoping to improve conservation.

Hunting to Conserve in Uganda

Edyau Echodu, the warden of the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Pian-Upe wildlife reserve, introduced the hunting plan. He said that hunting would help get rid of old animals that attack human settlements, killing and injuring people and damaging crops. He acknowledged that it was also aimed at increasing earnings from tourists.

Project H has completed a Learning Landscape design, putting reclaimed tires to uses of exponential value: educating youth at the Kutamba School for AIDS Orphans in southern Uganda.

The tires are used in various math lessons, teaching the kids addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. When the sandbox grid of tires is not being used for math games, wooden benches are placed atop the precisely spaced tires, serving as [...]

As our friends over at Feelgood Style have noted, EDUN Apparel, the company founded by Ali Hewson (wife of U2 frontman Bono), isn’t just in the business of making stylish green clothing.  The company’s vision includes using trade (rather than aid) to support sustainable community development in the developing world, and encouraging the fashion industry to work with Africa.

The company’s t-shirt division, EDUN LIVE, in partnership with Spike Jonze’s VBS.tv and VICE magazine have created a series of videos presenting the cultural and natural environments around Kampala, Uganda, where a local textile company makes some of the organic cotton t-shirts sold by EDUN.

A visitor to the “Made in Africa” section of EDUN LIVE’s web site could have a hard time choosing where to start. While the company does use some of the videos to reinforce its green and socially responsible cred with a three-part series on Japanese native Yuichi Kashiwada’s organic cotton textile mill, “Made in Africa” goes well beyond company promotion. Videos on the Breakdance Project Uganda at the Sharing Youth Center, and the Uganda Skateboard Union provide glimpses into youth culture in the city. Another features the KCC (Kampala City Cleaners) Football Club, a social welfare program that eventually produced a national championship soccer team. And the three-part “Gorillas in the Midst” takes viewers on a trek through the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, with guide Levi and the WWF’s Dr. Richard Carroll, to see the magnificent, and endangered, mountain gorillas.