World Animal Protection Condemns Killing of 11 Lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park .

BY SAMUEL NABWIISO

World Animal Protection has strongly condemned the killing of 11 lions in Hamukungu in Uganda.  This comes at a time when lion’s population is on a steep decline with about 90 lions left in this park.

Edith Kabesiime, Wildlife Campaigns Manager says, the killing of the big cats will drastically affects the country’s tourism sector thus the need for the  government to come up with an agent solution to deal with the problem of Human to Lion conflicts.

“The death of a whole pride of 11 lions in Hamukungu at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Western Uganda, and similar deaths across Africa highlight how urgent it is to do all we can to prevent such needless decimation of the continent’s remaining big cats. Human-lion conflict should be treated as urgency and serious measures taken to stamp out this tit-for-tat mentality and practice.” She said in statement issued by World Animal Protection.

Edith  Kabesiime  of the World  Animal  Protection 

The comment by the Edith Kabesiime, Wildlife Campaigns Manager at World Animal Protection comes at time when the country’s tourism sector is in shock after the poisoning of 11 Lions in Queen Elizabeth National park in Western Uganda. According to Information the big cats were killed by cattle keepers who on routine basis’s grazes their livestock’s in the park, the cattle keepers blames the wild Animals especially big cats for attacking their cows.

Lions are some of the key tourism attraction’s that have been attracting tourists both International and Locals to visit Queen Elizabeth National Park.

In 2016, the direct contribution of Travel and Tourism to Uganda’s GDP was Shs 2.4 tn (USD0.7bn) and is forecast to rise by 7.0 percent per year, from 2017-2027, to Shs5,558.3bn (USD1.6bn), 3.2 percent of total GDP in 2027.

The same year, Tourism directly supported 191,000 jobs (2.2 percent of total employment) and this is expected to rise by 4.9 percent per year to 355,000 jobs (2.7 percent of total employment) in 2027.

Palm oil farming to be extended to other districts

BY SAMUEL NABWIISO

The Minister for Agriculture Animal Industries and Fisheries Vincent Bamulangaki  Ssempija  has reiterated the need for government to replicate palm oil farming to other districts where the crop can grow well.

“As  Ministry of Agriculture we are going to encourage farmers from the districts of Mayuge,  Mpigi , Masasaka, Kalungu  and some  from Bunyoro to embrace  the growing  of palm oil because  of the economic  and social benefits associated  with the crop to the community” Ssempija said in an interview with this blogg .

 Ssempijja added that the more districts embrace the palm oil farming, the more the country will attract more investors to invest in the value addition chain in the vegetable oil sector.

“The more investors we have in the vegetable oil sector, the more jobs we will be able create thus improving the local livelihoods,” He added

Palm oil farmers in kalangala attending to his garden , government is planning to extend the farming of palmoil trees to other parts of the country 

Currently there are only two districts that are growing palm oil that is; Kalangala and Buvuma districts. 

Speaking during the Launch of the second evaluation of the vegetable oil development project phase II, recently, the Minister noted that under the project, government has managed to construct about 250km of farm roads which now ease the movement of local people and also support the development of small business in the district. 

The Minister said more people in the two districts have expanded their palm oil garden. “The more Districts embrace palm oil growing the more we shall protect our Environment, “ Sempijja said

The minister added that before the project, many islanders from Kalangala and Buvuma islands were depending on fishing and charcoal burning which depleted the country’s natural resources  especially fish and forests but with the palm oil project, many islanders have left charcoal burning to grow palm oil trees and are earning more than charcoal burning.

Airtel Uganda donated Goats to Moroto Girls

BY SAMUEL NABWIISO,

In line with the Education pillar of its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, Airtel Uganda has handed over 100 goats to 50 girls in Moroto district in a bid to join in the fundraising campaign #GOATSFORGIRLS that aims at keeping young girls in the Karamoja region in school.

This handover follows a pledge made by the telecom company to purchase and handover the goats in support of efforts being made by the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged girls especially in pastoral communities.

According to Pamela B. Nyamutoka Katooro, the IIRR Uganda Country Director, the practice of forced marriages in this region usually results from the lack of adequate resources to keep the girl child in school.

Airtel team handing over the goats to the Girls 

“Since 2015, IIRR’s Goats4Girls model has successfully been used to support over 2000 girls to enroll and stay in school,” she adds.

Handing over the goats, Airtel Uganda’s the Territory Business Manager of Moroto District, Mr. Vincent Baguma encouraged the recipients to use this opportunity to change their lives and improve the conditions of their families. Baguma also encouraged the families to assist the recipients to ensure that the goats stay in good health.

“As soon as these goats mature and reproduce, you will be required to hand over the first two kids to another girl in this community. Through this method, we believe the literacy levels in this community will improve and the school dropout rates will reduce,” Baguma concluded.

Airtel Uganda’s support for Education in Uganda dates back over 5 years when the telecommunications company launched the Adopt-A-School program which has so far benefited four schools and thousands of students across the country. Airtel Uganda has also provided network connectivity to schools in order to provide them with resources to better their curriculum