By Andrew Cohen Amvesi
ARUA
The Rt. Rev. Charles Collins Andaku, the Bishop of Madi and West Nile Diocese has appealed to Ugandans to make an effort to restore the environment.
According to Andaku, the only way of restoring the already depleted environment in the country is by joining the government in massive tree planting.
“It is a call to action to individuals, households, communities, institutions, groups, churches and partners like the media fraternity to make an effort to restore our environment through tree growing which is no longer an option but a necessity,” Andaku said while addressing journalists at the Diocesan headquarters in Mvara on Friday March 15, 2024.
“You and I have to participate in this. Each member in the household is to take responsibility and grow at least five trees, but it can be more, and each household will need to raise 30 trees in a year if they adopt this simple formula we have done,” Andaku appealed.
The Bishop made the appeal ahead of the Tree Sunday which is marked annually on every third Sunday of March. This year’s event will be celebrated on March 17, 2024 under the theme: “Trees, my livelihood.”
The day is usually preceded by the environmental week and this year, the environmental week started on March 10 with a number of activities in the different Archdeaconries including; tree planting, cleaning, removing polythene bags and bottles from the environment and sensitization of the communities on the need to conserve the environment among other things.
“What we are doing in the Diocese is basically to compliment the government’s efforts in greening the country. It is our responsibility as a church to lead by example. God has a plan for us as far as the environment is concerned. Of course, we are aware that we have abused our environment, so our plan to embrace God’s plan on the environment is littering the environment with elements that destroy and pollute the environment like plastic bottles and polythene bags should be condemned,” Andaku said.
He added that: “Family breakups due to challenges in meeting household livelihoods because we are aware there is domestic violence amongst us because livelihood has become expensive and tough, but if we kept on planting trees, growing food and working hard, we would be able to solve this problem of domestic violence. So, this environmental week helps us to bring this message clearly that these family breakages are due to challenges we meet in meeting our livelihood expectations especially food, medicine, places for sleep, clothing and the rest of it.”
The Bishop further said as a church, they also want to create awareness because destruction of water sources and swamps through cultivating and building is terrible in this country, a reason they want to bring the matter to the attention of the community and join hands to fight the vice.
Andaku said the indiscriminate cutting of trees without replacement to survive on is another big challenge which they have identified as a church, adding that they have also decided to join the government and the community so that they can improve on it.
“We have seen the consequences of indiscriminate cutting of trees in the past years; floods have come, famine, pollution of the environment, changes in the rain patterns, destructions done by winds blowing off our churches, schools, poor soil fertility, low water tables among many others we can’t exhaust and that is why we are here to join hands to say that we should protect our environment because it is where we earn our livelihood. It is now our duty to repent and deliberately work towards restoring the environment,” Andaku emphasized.
In her remarks, Jesca Munguleni, the diocesan head of household and community transformation department said this year’s environmental week activities were extended to schools and district leadership across the region.
“We normally crown all these activities by celebrating a Tree Sunday. So, tomorrow March 17, 2024 we shall celebrate our Tree Sunday in Arua Archdeaconry and it will be at Aliso Church of Uganda which is in Riki Parish. We want to ask the public to join us in this celebration which will be presided over by our Bishop,” Munguleni said.
“This cleaning exercise and the Tree Sunday is not a one-stop activity, it is a continuous journey because we want to see our diocese green, we want to see our environment healthy and everybody is responsible for this,” Munguleni advised.
