KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s oil developments are putting wetlands, wildlife and the communities that depend on them at risk through siltation, blocked waterways, floods,noise and air pollution, according to a new report by the Africa Institute for Energy Governance.
In the middle of the savannah grasslands, a herd of elephants graze by the roadside inside Uganda’s largest national park, Murchison Falls Park MFNP. Giraffes, elephants, bushbucks, and buffalo strut across the vast expanses of this savannah. A few meters away, the noise of bulldozers clearing an oil drilling site jars the calm of a sunny June day, as French oil giant TotalEnergies’ long-delayed Tilenga crude oil project roars to life.
Every morning, millions of garments are pulled from racks across Europe and the United States - purchased with excitement, worn a handful of times (if at all), and then discarded in favour of the next trend. But where do those discarded clothes go after being cast aside? Many second-hand clothes travel halfway across the world to Africa. Here, they meet a cruel fate, overwhelming the local markets, poisoning the environment, and exacerbating the global textile waste crisis. This global trade is marketed as charity, but the reality is much darker: it perpetuates a vicious cycle of waste colonialism with severe environmental and social consequences.
As a young man, Olekesi Koisa would always see his father study the stars, birds, and animals both domestic and wild; and would send a word to their village and beyond that there would be rain or drought, and that people should prepare for an impending disaster in the case that it was extreme.
It is a hot and humid day in Muhokya, the internally displaced people’s camp, located about 10 km south of Kasese district. Young teenage mothers gather in a ramshackled classroom, they have been summoned by the chairperson in charge of the settlement via a megaphone.