Cultivating sustainability in Uganda

BJ Heinzen

31 May 2013

In the second of her blog posts, analyst and consultant Barbara Heinzen takes us to Uganda to continue her account of the work of Barbets Duet, an experiment to find ways of living that put the earth's well-being at the heart of any economic activity.

60 years ago, when Magode Ikuya was a boy in Molo, Uganda, his place was rich.  It was covered in swamps and forest. There were monkeys and birds, medicinal plants and mushrooms, reptiles and fish in clear running waters.

Magode's site is in the Mt Elgon watershed where the water running off the mountain flows away towards Lake Kyoga and the White Nile.  From a distance the stream beds are as wide as rivers, but zoom in to Molo on the satellite map and you scarcely see water.  This is an ordinary working landscape, but one that is thin and impoverished. 

Deforested land, Molo, Uganda (c) Barbara Heinzen

When communal rights to firewood were exploited for cash, rapid deforestation caused the ground water to drop.  Plants, birds and wildlife vanished- "even chameleons which used to eat a lot of flies and other hostile insects," says Magode.

In 2009, Magode asked the clan leaders for land to create a fish pond.  Fish would raise more money on less land.   Around the pond, he replanted trees to restore the forest. 
 
In 2012, when his team went to harvest, the fish were gone.  He had protected the pond against frogs, monitor lizards and birds, but not against man, the most cunning predator of all.  At the bottom of the pond were a handful of fish hooks.  Worse, the thieves had drained the pond and scorched the trees with fire. "We have lost the battle, but not lost the war!" declared Magode.  "The trees will grow back. We will build a guard's hut and share the knowledge of fish farming with our neighbours."  

There is nothing remarkable about this Barbet learning site.  Yet, this place, too, needs to be environmentally rich and to benefit society. Wealth creation needs to be a tool for achieving that, not an end in itself. Magode's fish farming experiment will explore how that can be done.

Catch up with Barbara's first article in this series "What does sustainable mean?". Next week: Woodland Valley organic farm in Cornwall.

Inspired by the work of Barbets Duet? Help defend human rights and the environment too, and take our actions on environmental justice.