Environment Corruption worst evil written by Robert Ddamulira

YOUNG PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION: THE PRACTICING ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION (PEMO)

Written by Ddamulira RobertExecutive Director Practicing Environmental Managers Organization (PEMO)P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723Email: [email protected]: www.pemo.wordpress.com

http://www.pemo.wordpress.com/

“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”Table of contents

ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................................................2INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................3THE DEVIL’S SNARE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION.....................................................4RECOGNIZING THE ELUSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION IN UGANDA....................5YOUNG PEOPLE AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION PEMO STYLE:......................6

Fighting Environmental Ignorance:...................................................................................................6Schools’ Environmental Practice Club (SEPC).............................................................................7Roadshow Community Dialogues.................................................................................................7TV SHOWS...................................................................................................................................8Weekly Radio Programmes...........................................................................................................9Research.........................................................................................................................................9

Fighting Poverty................................................................................................................................9Creating Employment for Graduate Environmentalists..............................................................11Trees for poverty alleviation........................................................................................................11Fighting poverty through Participatory planning in Namuwongo slum......................................12Sustainable Organic Agriculture (SOA)......................................................................................13

CHALLENGES AND LESSONS:......................................................................................................13REPLICATING PEMO.......................................................................................................................14CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................14

List of Acronyms

DFID: Department for International Development

FICUBC: Forum on International Cooperation University of British Columbia (Canada)

IFAD: International Fund for Agricultural Development

NACODO: Namuwongo Community Development Organizations

NEMA: National Environmental Management Organization

UN: United Nations

UNDP: United Nations Development Programme

SOA: Sustainable Organic Agriculture

PEMO: Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 [email protected], www.pemo.wordpress.com

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“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”

ABSTRACTCorruption is the greatest evil facing humanity today; it turns cancerous when young people are

recruited within its ranks luring them into corrupt tendencies. The only solution to stop corruption is

by preventing through empowering young people (the next generation) to resist it. Aware that

corruption manifests through different faces; from moral corruption to embezzlement of public funds

through graft; this essay examines how young people can contribute to the struggle against

environmental corruption, which is perhaps the worst variety of corruption. It draws lessons from

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization’s infectious anti-environmental corruption efforts

and grand rainbow innovations to how other young people throughout the world can work towards a

corrupt free future. Like the proverbial donkey that wished it were a lion, many youth today think

adulthood is a border to be crossed undercover of darkness, but not PEMO youth.

Environmental corruption results when public officials are compromised by graft away from proper

stewardship of public environmental resources. Consequently this orchestrates the general public

towards environmentally corruptible practices. The average age of all Ugandans is 15 years; because

the Ugandan population is young, youth have significant roles to play against environmental

corruption. Environmental corruption has led to severe deforestation, which supports 90% of all

Ugandan energy needs (Pomeroy, 2004); it has created situations where 90% of the entire national

disease burden is attributable to environmental factors (DFID, 2000).

Besides market failure, poor governance and inefficient consumption patterns, environmental

corruption in Uganda is fueled by ignorance and poverty. Ignorance leads to environmental

corruption because public servants like most Ugandans are unaware of the full impacts of their

actions or inaction on environmental issues. Poverty however, makes them easily gullible to bribery

and graft towards environmental corruption. It also keeps them busy eking a living that they can’t

adequately address environmental corruption. This essay tells a factual contribution of young people

to the alleviation of these two kingpin causes of environmental corruption. In PEMO, ignorance has

been fought through Schools’ Environment Practice Clubs where primary and secondary students are

empowered on the cause-effect relations of environmental corruption, exciting roadshow community

dialogues, weekly TV and radio talkshows and research. Poverty on the other hand has been

alleviated through creating employment for would be corruptible young environmental graduates;

promoting of the highly profitable tree planting; participatory planning with corruption affected

communities and more recently preparations towards sustainable organic agriculture demonstrations. Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723

[email protected], www.pemo.wordpress.com 2


“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”INTRODUCTION

By help of their incantations and evil agents, they had endeavored to pry into the future, which belongs to the Almighty alone, and now their faces are painfully twisted the contrary way; and being unable to look before them, they are forced to walk backwards.

- Dante Aligieri, Divine Comedy: The Inferno, translated by Carlyle (1867)

1.1 Corruption shatters lives and has led to untold human suffering. When public officials fail to

deliver the common good out of self-interest, many lives have been lost and others have been

irreversibly maimed. Young people hold the key to a corrupt free future. If young people examine

the underlying causes of corruption and actively participate in formulating equitable proactive

solutions they stand a better chance of being transformed into corrupt-free adults.

1.2 Corruption is commonly applied to self-benefiting conduct by officials dedicated to public

service. There are many forms of corruption; from moral corruption to financial embezzlement.

However, today environmental corruption is the worst form of corruption. It has led to the warming

of the earth, rising sea levels, frequent famines, droughts, floods and several catastrophes of

geological scales such as, Hurricane Katrina and Tsunamis all due to corrupt-crammed public failure

to address the underlying environmental causes.

1.3 The first year in which the number of refugees from natural disasters exceeded those

displaced by war was 1998 (DFID, 2000). Today there are twice as many refugees from

environmental stress as from war globally; the UN estimates 65 million people escaping from Africa

to Europe annually due to environmental destruction. Famines have tripled in Africa since 1980 and

extreme drought will reduce agricultural production by one third (⅓) below what the world needs

(Badawi, 2006). By 2025, two out of every three persons on earth will live in places without

adequate water (DFID, 2000). African farmers can’t adapt fast enough to climate change and

millions are dying due to starvation, droughts and flooding; acid rain is ruining several forests in

Europe while water scarcity has sparked off deadly conflicts in Darfur and northern Uganda. We are

rushing to ruin as self-benefiting individuals and large establishments compromise our corruptible

leaders away from proper environmental stewardship.

1.4 ExxonMobil is the world’s most profitable corporation. Its oil sales amount to more than

$1bn a day. It has more to lose than any other company from efforts addressing climate change. To

safeguard its profits, Exxon sows doubt about whether serious action needs to be taken on climate


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“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”change. This strategy has set the world back by a decade. It finances over 124 quack organizations to

consistently claim that the climate change science is contradictory and environmentalists are

lunatics; that if governments take action they would be endangering the global economy for no good

reason (Monbiot, 2006).

1.5 This essay deepens our understanding of environmental corruption through a thorough

examination of the revolutionary young peoples’ contributions in the Practicing Environmental

Managers’ Organization. It illustrates how young people can avoid and proactively contribute lasting

solutions to the anti-corruption campaign.

THE DEVIL’S SNARE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION 2.0 Environmental corruption occurs when public officials make decisions about environmental

resources that are personally desirable yet unspeakably injurious. Philip Cooney, a former lobbyist

for the US oil industry, is an embodiment of environmental corruption; having wound up – despite

no scientific training – as chief of staff of the White House’s environment office, he rewrote papers

by government scientists, turning firm conclusions into doubtful possibilities. He literally changed

“is” to “may”. He was caught, left the Bush administration but took a job at ExxonMobil the next

day (Freedland, 2006).

2.1 This generation survives on borrowed resources from future generations. The Harvard

Entomologist, Wilson E. O, Nobel Peace Laureate suggests that to bring all people on the planet

(5.8billion, 1997) to the level of comfort enjoyed by the average American, would require the

resources of two more planet earths.

2.2 Madagascar, an island nation off the coast of East Africa is a microcosm of environmental

corruption, which has ruined its natural resources; now it’s too broke to purchase the essentials from

elsewhere. In Antananarivo, the Capital city, tourists are told if they go out at night, they will be

mugged and are likely to be killed. The streets of this city at night are owned not by bad people but

simply by hungry ones fighting Darwin’s age old war; survival for the fittest (Torne).

2.3 Forest resources directly contribute to the livelihoods of some 90% of the 1.2 billion people

living in extreme poverty. They support agriculture, which nourishes nearly ½ of the developing

world. Forests are a major source of national wealth. They provide immensely important


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“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”environmental services; maintaining soil stability, water flow and quality, regulating global climate

through carbon sequestration and support the bulk of terrestrial biodiversity (World Bank, 2004).

Nonetheless, despite an estimated population outburst from 28 million persons to 56 million by 2025

(Rice, 2006), in Uganda, courtesy of corrupt public “giveaways” of forests to foreign ‘investors,’

70% of all forests are predicted to be lost by 2025 (Pomeroy and Tushabe 2004).

RECOGNIZING THE ELUSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION IN UGANDA3.1 Here is a true-case illustration of Environmental corruption; against the constitutional

prohibitions, the Ugandan government in November 2000 awarded a foreign palm oil grower 3500ha

of a forested island amidst Lake Victoria (largest freshwater lake in Africa) as “incentive”.

Decisively the Government (a small clique of officials) sub-consciously asked, “What is the utility to

me of adding this investor to the economy?” This utility had one negative and one positive

component (Hardin 1964);

1. The positive component was a function of the revenue increment from the oil investor. Since the

government clique received all these proceeds, the positive utility was nearly a whole +1

2. The negative component was a function of the additional environmental degradation created by

the oil investor in terms of water pollution, deforestation and climate change. Since all

Ugandans, East Africans and the rest of the world, shared this, the government clique only

shared a minute fraction of the negative utility -1

3.2 Adding together the two component partial utilities, the rational Ugandan government

concluded that the right thing to do was to award this palm oil investor, the largest island (Bugala)

within Lake Victoria. It also assisted this firm to secure a loan from IFAD and the Environment

Impact Assessment (which constitutionally guides such developments) for the project has never been

made public (Isoba, 2000).

3.3 Ever since this decision among other similar ones were made, the Lake Victoria water level

is at a record lowest since 19231, Hydroelectric production dependant on the lake has fallen from

total production potential of 300MW to a meager 80-90MW (Among, 2006). These effects have sent

shock waves through the Ugandan economy and have significantly affected life in Kenya, Tanzania,

1 Among (2006) Lake Victoria water level dropped by 152cm between 2002 and 2005, reduced flows into the lake accounted for 65%.


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“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”Sudan, Egypt and other nations benefiting from Lake Victoria and the R. Nile. Today Uganda is

marked with severe electricity rationing, hospitals run on malfunctioning generators; schools don’t

operate at night and the people have been discouraged from forest conservation, because of

environmental corruption triggered by such projects.

3.4 PEMO realized that environmental corruption in Uganda was ultimately caused by market

failure (where the costs of goods and services didn’t reflect the true social and environmental costs

of production), poor governance (where environmental laws are disregarded by corrupted public

officials) and unequal consumption patterns (where the rich degraded environmental resources at the

expense of the poor). We however, noted that environmental corruption was primarily caused by

ignorance and poverty. These realizations were fundamental founding motivations for young people

in the Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization (PEMO) to respond to environmental

corruption in Uganda as described below;

YOUNG PEOPLE AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION PEMO STYLE:

PEMO executive

4.0 Our two pronged approach against environment corruption primarily addresses ignorance and

poverty. PEMO is the first environmental organization in Uganda and probably in Africa formed and

led by a cohort group of youth professional environmentalists. In a country where over 95% of all

livelihoods are directly dependant on natural resources, excluding professional environmental

graduates from contributing towards sustainable development is a recipe for disaster. This was what

existed in Uganda before PEMO. Thousands of graduates were sidelined from contributing to the

anti-environmental corruption campaign. Evidenced by its prudent efforts below, today PEMO

(www.pemo.wordpress.com) is a pinnacle of hope against environmental corruption.

Fighting Environmental Ignorance:4.1 Environmental ignorance is an intellectual problem where public officials are unaware of the

full effects of their action and inaction toward natural resource management. In a country where only


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“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”60% of the population can read and write, environmental ignorance is a common occurrence. To

address environmental corruption, environmental messages have to be communicated in acceptable

packages that will adequately inform and influence decisions towards that which is environmentally

equitable. This is what PEMO does best through the Schools’ Environmental Practice Clubs,

roadshow community dialogues, weekly TV shows and weekly radio talkshows and environmental

research.

Schools’ Environmental Practice Club (SEPC)

Scenes from SEPC

4.2 The best way to fight environmental corruption like all other forms of corruption is to

prevent it. The SEPC adopts exciting tools of environmental debate, music, panel discussions to

encourage young people in Uganda’s primary and secondary schools to understand issues pertinent

to environmental corruption. By creating a safe and informed discussion ground we are guiding

young people to make environmentally optimal decisions to fight the constant urge towards

environmental corruption. SEPC nurtures a generation of tomorrow’s world leaders that is aware of,

but environmentally incorruptible. We have created a database of our SEPC and shall keep a

constant lookout for these young people as they mature into environmentally incorruptible adults.

We hope that other young people can borrow a leaf by initiating similar SEPC projects against other

forms of corruption.

Roadshow Community Dialogues

4.3 Corruption must be condemned by a strong and motivated public constituency. Through

roadshow community dialogues we empower local communities to lookout for and condemn

environmentally corrupt habits both private and public. This idea is relatively simple; having


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Empowerment on environmental rights still needed to avoid slum-related diseasesIn Jambula, Kampala the communities ranked unplanned houses high on the list of main environmental problems, only two houses had plans, a house with 34 tenants had no pit latrine, public latrines are locked at night. The residents construct at night to avoid urban authorities from stopping them. Those who see them neither exert pressure on them to stop nor report them to authorities. Such indifference is a reflection of lack of understanding of the likely negative impacts of these actions and lack of empowerment among the urban residents. There is a need to invest in empowering urban communities to demand their right to a clean and health environment. Short of that urban planning standards will continue to be abused and people will also continue to exert negative impacts on their neighbours. (UNDP, 2005)

“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”identified a community with serious issues of environmental corruption, we do advocacy among the

community’s leaders and agree on a date to do en masse roadshow community dialogue addressing

key environmental corruption issues. We mobilize anti-environmental corruption awareness material

from World Bank Country office and

government environmental agencies. At a

community gathering venue, our SEPC

through music, drama and poetry, attracts a

large crowd, we break the music, do the

sensitization about the causes and effects of

environmental corruption, distribute

awareness material and as the crowd loses

interest and begins to disperse, the SEPC does

the music again, attracting an even bigger

crowd, we sensitize again and again.

4.4 This has been an effective strategy in

promoting en masse awareness about

environmental corruption. Local communities

have been able to demand a less corrupt free public administration of environmental resources.

Youth could borrow a leaf from this approach by holding community dialogues at churches,

mosques and other gathering places about the causes and effects of other forms of corruption and

how local communities can contribute to a corrupt free society.

TV SHOWS4.5 We carry out lively talk shows on Top TV twice a week (Friday and Saturday) addressing

key issues pertinent to environmental corruption. These shows viewed by over 1,000,000 persons

have featured many public officials addressing selected environmental corruption topics about;

climate change, waste management, wetland reclamation and others. PEMO lobbied for this

programme and was awarded TV airtime free of charge; youth can request airtime on a local radio or

TV and create a discussion board against corruption, many people are willing to lend a hand, we

only need ask sometimes; youth will be surprised what help is out there.


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Fig. 1Environmental corruption in Uganda: This is Mabira forest currently being considered between the president and a sugar cane investor for sugarcane growing.

“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”

Weekly Radio Programmes4.6 This is done every Saturday between 7:00am and 8:00am on Impact national Radio. This

radio programme addresses key environmental corruption issues each week such as public-led

deforestation and embezzlement of environment funds. The over 5,000,000 million listeners that we

attract each week are today more knowledgeable about the environment, environmental corruption

and how to avoid it. Through initiating such similar discussion boards youth around the world can

motivate local masses to rally an anti-corruption campaign through mass media.

Research4.7 Whenever

a key

environmental

issue arises, PEMO

has always

mobilized masses

through applied research whose findings they use to

promote the anti-environmental corruption

campaign in the nation. When Mabira forest (one of the only few remaining forests in the Lake

Victoria basin), was requested from government by a sugarcane ‘investor’, PEMO conducted a

participatory research in Mabira forest, evaluating the forest uses, dependent communities and their

likely outcomes if the forest was turned into a sugarcane plantation. We found 1,200,000 million

people relying on the forest for water alone; using these figures we rallied an anti-environmental

corruption fight against a presidential directive to award the forest as incentive to sugarcane

‘investor’. Assisted by other environmental activists, the forest has since then been conserved.

Research is an important entry point for youth to put a spirited fight against all forms of corruption.

Fighting PovertyNobody is too rich that they lack nothing

Nobody is too poor that they can offer nothingAristotle

4.8 In developing nations poverty is a kingpin cause of environmental corruption. Short-term

economic growth and social delivery take precedence over ecosystem conservation (Pierce et., al,

2002). Upon receiving graft from quack investors, public officials front a case that environmental Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723



“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”quality shouldn’t take precedence over poverty alleviation. They argue that industries must be built

even if forests, lakes, wetlands must be forfeited, little do they know that those industries depend on

the same natural resources for the bulk of their raw materials; palms like other crops need adequate

rain, sugarcane requires good soils and regular rains.

4.9 Therefore PEMO’s efforts against poverty removes one of the greatest scapegoats public

officials employ to explain their corrupt tendencies in Uganda. Poor people often depend heavily on

the productivity and environmental services of ecosystems and natural resources for as much as 30%

– 50% of their total income (World Bank, 2004). Degradation of environmental resources through

public environmental corruption leads to impoverishment and destruction. Poverty sustains

environmental corruption because the poor are too preoccupied with day-to-day survival to pay

attention to public officials corruptly misusing the environment. When poor people become

vulnerable they are unable to cope with physical threats such as flooding shown below;

4.10 Corruption has deadened African leaders to the suffering of their people. When copies of the

bills of the President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, showed that he had spent $

318,000 on putting up himself, his butler, his personal photographer, hairdresser and about 50 other

members of his entourage at the Palace Hotel in New York, the head of World Bank, Mr. Paul

Wolfowitz listened to the anti-corruption groups that said oil wealth in Congo was benefiting the

elite rather than the 70% of the population who live on $2 a day (Cohen, 2006). This same story is

played out each time a corrupted government decision has to be made about Uganda’s natural

resources upon which millions of the poor depend.


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Because these men couldn’t afford land in the drier parts of the city, they settled in a wetland and are vulnerable to flooding that occurs suddenly

each rainy season more so with the current climate change, exposing him to disease, loss of property and more poverty.


“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”4.11 To address poverty as a kingpin cause of environmental corruption PEMO adopted a number

of projects including; creating employment, participatory community planning, trees for wealth and

the envisaged sustainable organic agriculture project as described below;

Creating Employment for Graduate Environmentalists4.12 Franked with severe unemployment, a group of environmental graduates formed PEMO to

expand opportunities for career environmentalists through exposing them to daily environmental

circumstances in their nation. This improved their employability and contributed to national

development. A flagship example is a PEMO member who served for over one year in developing

PEMO project proposals and leading several projects, he was able to land a hefty job with one of the

leading environmental consultancies in Uganda from where he earns an unbelievable net salary of

US $800 per month. He continually supports PEMO with 10% of that income each month. All

factors cry out that without his PEMO experience, he would never have made it to that job at 25

years.

4.13 With such employment, PEMO-groomed environmental graduates (future public servants)

are buttressed against bribery and other forms of graft characteristic of environmental corruption.

First observing from the side through PEMO and experientially learning about cause-effect aspects

of environmental corruption, these youth graduates are unlikely to become corruptible as future

public officials. Other young people can form alternative NGOs and participate through these against

corruption in their professions; as they turn into adults they will be incorruptible public servants.

Trees for poverty alleviation.

4.14 The primary motivation of this project is to attract national support in Uganda to enable the

planting of 5 million trees throughout Uganda by private and public effort by 2008 as a one-off


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Launching the 5 million tree project


“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”display of public displeasure of government-led forest degradation and global climate change. We

also promote tree plantation development as an environmentally sustainable means towards poverty

alleviation. A single hectare which costs about US $1800 net investment for 20 years will yield in

excess of US $180,000 net profit which is about 10,000% return on investment. At the launch we

fundraised by selling 2,000 trees on 1st January 2007. We have since then fundraised through selling

5,000 tree seedlings. Income has been used to generate more tree seedlings. Many people have since

expressed intentions of establishing tree plantations. Once our people are empowered out of poverty

they will pay effective attention to public-led environmental corruption.

Fighting poverty through Participatory planning in Namuwongo slum

4.15 The future of African development lies in empowering communities to participate in bringing

about localized growth and development. However, intermarriages and migrations have broken

cultural anti-corruption safety-nets. This has generated a new and elusive form of corruption;

fighting which requires localized efforts of differentiated but common responsibilities through

inclusive approaches.

4.16 This participatory planning project was undertaken by PEMO in partnership with FICUBC

(www.ficubc.wordpress.com); another youth-led organization from Canada and the residents of

Namuwongo in 2006. Our participatory tools including; resource mapping, transects, livelihood

analysis, yielded a community based organization, NACODO of local democratically-elected leaders

that now improve sanitation and protect the community against corrupt public forces that seek their

evacuation. Today through collective action, they keep their surroundings clean and healthy as well

as attracting external support to improve the previously unhygienic situation in this slum

(http://matthewjohnberry.googlepages.com/home).

4.17 NACODO has lived true to this promise and is a clear example of how communities if well

empowered and motivated can put up strong fights against all corruption and particularly

environmental corruption. Testimony to this, despite previous deaths each rain season from cholera Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723



http://matthewjohnberry.googlepages.com/home

http://www.ficubc.wordpress.com/

“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”in this slum, after the project no cholera deaths have been reported. Because institutions outlast

individuals, they are key ingredients to a successful anti-corruption fight. Youth can assist

communities institutionalize efforts against corruption as we did in this slum.

Sustainable Organic Agriculture (SOA)4.18 Uganda is an agricultural country with 80% of smallholder farmers. Agriculture contributes

80% of all employment and 85% of export earnings; while soil degradation from agriculture imposes

a per capita debt of US$ 200 on every Ugandan (UNDP, 2005). It is obvious that for Uganda to

develop it has to improve her agriculture through recapturing the loss imposed by soil degradation.

The equitable solution to this puzzle is sustainable organic agriculture. PEMO is planning to

establish a demonstration farm in each of the four Ugandan regions (East, West, Central and North),

which will demonstrate SOA methods that will be in consonance with environmental conservation.

Once farmers earn optimal proceeds from their farmlands, they will be empowered to see through

the lie of environmental corruption associated with self-benefiting public servants destroying the

several environmental components (such as forests, lakes etc) that support agriculture.

CHALLENGES AND LESSONS:5.0 It would be unreasonable to expect a project of this nature without problems such as

inadequate funding (we have accomplished all this without any significant public or private funding;

we are financed through meager membership fees and in-kind contributions). Therefore we adopted

projects based on our financial capacity to complete them apart from urgency and appropriateness.

Since they don’t earn a salary some PEMO members can go off weeks no end, because they can’t

afford transport or lunch. This has led to significant inefficiencies. Such problems can be avoided in

future by adequate funding leading to early and adequate investing in training and adequate planning

even if initial operations are delayed slightly. Other youth don’t want to join our cause; they think

ours is a long route to prosperity.

5.1 Youth environmentalists’ contribution to the fight against environmental corruption in

Uganda is limited by their impatient desire to become adult environmentalists; they think adulthood

environmentalism is a border to be crossed under the cover of darkness. They therefore seek to bribe

their way into high profile environmental positions hence propagating environmental corruption.


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“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”REPLICATING PEMO6.0 True sustainable efforts against corruption will increasingly depend on orchestrated global

and regional efforts. Based on a feasibility assessment (involving interviews and focus group

discussions with World Bank Country Representative Uganda, Rwanda Ambassador, Environmental

graduates, NEMA, Ministry of Youth among others) for replicating PEMO in East Africa, we

concluded that a few pioneers can facilitate other youth environmentalists to form similar PEMOs in

their nations thereby creating employment and contributing to the fight against environmental

corruption; which is the greatest challenge to Africa’s development. Young people are more willing

to work without financial rewards as long as clear career benefits (opportunities and capability

enhancements) can be revealed. The struggle is hard in the beginning but help comes with

persistence.

CONCLUSION 7.0 Corruption is both a social and moral problem, solutions lie in the realm of positive influence

of behaviour. Humans are rational beings they are willing to take the right path if well pointed out.

But the youth of today need a reality check. PEMO’s experience links youth to a proverbial donkey

that wished to be a lion. This donkey wished so earnestly to become a lion that it designed a

costume, which resembled a true lion when worn. But this would not satisfy the donkey; it thought a

true lion has to be accepted by real lions. One day donning its lion costume, the donkey crawled in

and mixed with real lions. The lions accepted the donkey just as they would another lion, so it

thought it had really become a lion. It started thinking of other donkeys with contempt. “They do too

much work, eat a little and have to carry heavy loads amidst a shower of whips”. Evening came and

the lions started their customary roaring, the donkey blinded by the acceptance thought it had

become a lion and it tried to join in the chorus, only that it couldn’t roar, it only brayed like other

donkeys do, whereupon the lions ate it.

7.1 Like this unfortunate donkey so are many youth today; they want so badly to become adults,

that they have designed and don adult costumes. Most distressingly they have adopted mainly the

bad-tendencies of the minority of adults; heavy drinking, battering girlfriends, smoking and

corruption whenever the opportunity allows. Some have even attempted to roar through drug abuse

and sex orgies with multiple partners; these unfortunately have been eaten by the lions of AIDS,

STDs and early pregnancies, mothers at 15 years! The only guarantee that you will be a successful

corrupt free adult is if you are a successful corrupt free young person. This means accepting and

doing your responsibilities as a young person; listening to your parents and elders, seeking Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723



“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”knowledge and any other responsibilities of young people. Adulthood is not a border to be crossed

under the cover of darkness. For PEMO members, as young graduates of environment studies, we

have chosen to add our prudent efforts to fighting environmental corruption in our various

innovative projects. This is the only guarantee that we shall be successful corrupt free adult public

servants.


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Department for International Development (DFID), 2000. Achieving sustainability; poverty elimination and the environment, strategies for achieving the international development targets, Stairway communications, London.

Freedland, Jonathan, 2006. Don’t Shoot the Messenger, in the Guardian Weekly (September 22-28, 2006) Vol. 175/No. page 13

Hardin, Garrett, 1964. Tragedy of the commons, http://dieoff.org/page95.htm

Isoba Moses, Dr. (2000), Sunday Vision, November 5th, 2000, Developers threaten Bugala, Special Report, Kampala Uganda, page 3.

Monbiot George (2006), The denial Industry, In Guardian Weekly September 29 – October 5, 2006, Weekly Review, Vol 175/ No. 15 (see also www.exxonsecrets.org)

Pierce S. M. Cowling, R. M. MacKinnon K. (2002) Mainstreaming biodiversity in development, World Bank Environment Department.

Pomeroy D. and Tushabe H. (2004), The State of Uganda’s Biodiversity 2004, National Biodiversity Data Bank, Makerere University Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (MUIENR)

Rice. Xan (2006) High birthrate threatens to trap Africa in cycle of Poverty, Guardian weekly September 1-7, 2006 Vol 175/No 11

Torne, William. Beyond preaching to the choir; in Conservation Biology in Practice for Conservation Biology.

UNEP, 2006. Proceedings of the UNFCCC conference in Nairobi.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2005, Uganda Human Development Report: Linking environment to development: a deliberate choice, DW&DW Publishers, Kampala Uganda.

World Bank, 2004. Responsible growth for the new millennium; integrating society, ecology and the economy, World Bank Publications Washington DC, USA

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http://www.exxonsecrets.org/

http://dieoff.org/page95.htm

Environment Corruption worst evil written by Robert Ddamulira

Documents

roadshow community dialogues

sustainable organic agriculture

corrupt free future

elusive environmental corruption

climate change

participatory planning

public officials

environmental services