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Prioritizing Climate Awareness

By Ssekika Edward

In June 2009, the Internews Network, a global media development organization, launched the Earth Journalism Awards to honor professional or nonprofessional journalists promoting awareness of climate change issues. The winners will be announced at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December. Here, Ssekika Edward and Maria C. Valencia (following article), two young earth journalists who are part of the Internews Network, report on the situation in their countries.

photo Temperature increases have dramatically changed the lives of farmers in western Uganda [Walter Astrada/AFP]

In Uganda, few journalists have received any training around issues of the environment and climate change. Ugandan media, especially radio, which serves over 90 percent of the population, concentrate on European soccer, politics and comedy rather than educating the local population on climate change mitigation or documenting adaptation.

I have been a science and environmental reporter since 2008, having spent five years working in the media. At one point I was interested in politics and the environment, but, when I attended a workshop on climate change early this year I saw climate as an issue that affects all of us, so I decided to prioritize raising awareness through the media of the negative impacts of climate change, as well as of adaptation and mitigation mechanisms. I attended a climate change training workshop in Kampala in April this year, organized by Panos Eastern Africa with support from Oxfam, and was selected to be part of a three-month-long media fellowship on climate change.

Uganda and Climate Change

Prolonged dry spells across Uganda have been responsible for a severe famine now ravaging 51 districts. Seventeen people have died of starvation in the Acholi subregion alone, and a total of 37 people have been killed by hunger and hunger-related illness in Uganda. Hunger is also ravaging the entire Horn of Africa including Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti. Environmentalists have attributed this severe famine and starvation to man's activities.

The destruction of forests and wetlands, the burning of fossil fuels and carbon emissions from industries have been responsible for huge emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere causing climate change. Charcoal burning has greatly contributed to the destruction of forests. Ninety-five percent of Uganda's 30 million people depend on wood for cooking.

Climate change has also caused water shortages in Uganda. In Bulisa district, for example, pastoralists are experiencing difficulty finding water for their animals, while in the neighboring Hoima district more than 50 percent of the boreholes have dried up as a result of the lowering of the water table caused by prolonged drought. Uganda's Water and Environment Minister Maria Mutagamba recently confirmed that the country has become water-stressed.

Earth journalism is of paramount importance, and as a young journalist I am in a position to write climate change stories. Journalists need to create a media network and enhance our capabilities for environmental reporting. This can raise awareness and help decision makers make informed decisions. The increased civic competence among the population can help mitigate the negative effects of climate change. Journalists are conduits of public information, and the public makes decisions based on the information they have available.

Ssekika Edward, age 28, writes for The Observer, Uganda's leading biweekly newspaper.

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