\u00a0Ugandan authorities have been urged to implement tax cuts on clean cooking technologies especially for schools to alleviate pressure on forests throughout the country.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The call was made by Ms. Agneta Winther, the Chief Operations Officer at World Wide Fund ( WWF )Uganda during the commemoration of Earth Hour Day marked in Kadagi District.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Winther said clean cooking technologies can decrease the use of wood fuel and charcoal by up to 50 percent.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe want to encourage the government to support techniques for clean cooking because it is a very big factor that can contribute to minimizing the deforestation related to fuel woods in schools,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In a partnership with Bunyoro Kingdom and religious leaders, WWF Uganda has since asked schools within the Albertine Region to establish at least an acre of a woodlot for cooking requirements.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cAn average school in Uganda needs at least three trucks of firewood a week to meet the cooking energy needs. With over 22,500 primary schools and 2000 secondary schools alone, this puts our forest sector and the environment specifically under a big threat,\u201d said Ms. Winther.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWorld Wide Fund (WWF)Uganda has decided this year to use the Earth Hour to shed light on the really big crisis of deforestation we currently face in Uganda, one of the reasons being cooking fuel for school. So we use this opportunity to focus on this problem with the schools in Uganda that are consuming lots of wood for firewood,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe want to do this year is to ask the schools to plant at least one acre of woodlots for them to be self-sustainable in terms of fuel for cooking, but also to keep the environment in the school nice and clean and cold, so we can avoid ending up in a situation like in South Sudan where they had to close the schools because it was so hot,\u201d added Ms. Winther.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Officials caution that without adopting clean cooking technologies, the progress made could be undermined. Charcoal production and firewood consumption lead to the felling of approximately 7000 hectares of forest every 30 days.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cAn average school in Uganda needs at least three trucks of firewood a week to meet the cooking energy needs. With over 22,500 primary schools and 2000 secondary schools alone, this puts our forest sector and the environment specifically under a big threat,\u201d said Agneta.<\/p>\n
\u00a0To mitigate these issues, the focus includes mobilizing sustainable financing, promoting biomass replacement, supporting green charcoal producers, distributing improved cookstoves, and continuous awareness campaigns to encourage the adoption of clean cooking energy sources.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Despite advancements in some districts, the reliance on wood fuel and charcoal remains high. Statistics reveal that 100,000 hectares of forests vanish annually.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe must understand that in addition to learners having food, they need a conducive and cool environment to enjoy the learning. I now want to draw a bell, to rally all of you policy makers and school heads, that a Woodlot for every school will ensure that our forest cover is intact. It will also ensure a cool learning environment,\u201d said Winther.<\/p>\n
Andrew\u00a0Kirungi\u00a0Byakutaga\u00a0Ateenyi, the Prime Minister of Bunyoro Kingdom pledged to support these efforts through a network of County Chiefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will work with our network of County Chiefs and Kingdom officials to ensure that we contribute to the overall challenge of restoring our landscapes and making them a better place to live in,\u201d said the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n
\u00a0He called on all the citizens of Bunyoro to rally and consider environmental conservation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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