Uganda's dilemma of competing goals
Second of two parts
MBARARA, Uganda
GRACE KAGORO, a biology professor and environmental researcher at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, is concerned about everything from climate change to chimpanzee diets to national park wildlife raiding farm crops. She sees a nation of great natural contrasts and contradictions.
Her nation is blessed with incredibly fertile land and Africa’s most developed certified organic farming operations, according to the United Nations. Ordinary roadsides teem with wildlife. But Lake Victoria, the world’s largest tropical lake that is shared by Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, is dramatically degraded and drying up. Water levels have dropped over 6 feet. The population near the lake has mushroomed to 30 million, the most dense development by rural people in the world. Wetlands around the capital of Kampala are almost completely wiped out. Hydroelectric dams, human sewage, and agricultural run-off, not to mention fights between the three countries for falling fish stocks, have many people alarmed.
Lake Victoria is symbolic of a Uganda that stands at a precipice. This month, the nation’s environmental management authority released a report that found that Uganda lost 30 percent of its forests since 1990, and could lose all of them by mid-century in a massive transformation of desertification. This has Kagoro nervous about adding what she said could be one more shock to the soil and water: the spraying of homes with DDT to control malaria.
“The last 10 to 15 years, things have been booming,’’ she said. “You have beaches for hotels, horticultural industries growing roses, and the fishing is always going on. Most of the shore is green from the sewage and fertilizer. There hasn’t been any way found yet to keep up with water treatment and you see the sewage come out of pipes. Water hyacinths (an invasive species) are everywhere because of the nutrients (which create even more breeding grounds for disease-transmitting mosquitoes).“As much as malaria is a nasty disease, we don’t need the DDT. We need to think about how much clean water we’re going to have, too. They tell us the DDT spraying will be safe. But with all the run-off problems we already have, we cannot know for sure.’’
And if and when they know there is a problem, it might be too late. This makes Uganda a laboratory for how developing countries deal with old scourges while anticipating new environmental challenges.
The government recently said it is banning plastic bags and the sale of used computers and refrigerators out of concern that poor nations are toxic dumping grounds for the waste of the rich. Finance Minister Syda Bbumba said, “We safeguard our environment or else we shall pay an immense price in the future.’’
It is so difficult to determine which future to save first and at what price. The human toll of malaria is undeniable, costing Uganda between 70,000 and 110,000 lives a year. But Mbarara University community health researcher Vincent Batwala, like several other health experts, say the government has to take the long-term and resist the “magic bullet’’ approach of DDT, which indeed has proven effective around the world against malaria but can destroy wildlife if too much is applied. Batwala said the government should focus on getting free nets and supplies of anti-malarial drugs that do not run out, and to engage citizens to eliminate pools of stagnant water around their homes.
“We don’t know what will happen if the DDT gets into the water table,’’ Batwala said. “Will we be able to export our fish and crops? The government says that spraying just the houses will not harm the environment. But that is really hard to know. We have to think in the long term.’’
Samuel Maling, Mbarara University’s associate dean of science, agreed, saying, “We have not yet gone full throttle with preventative measures. We may have to have limited spraying in some places, but we should resist the urge to spray everywhere. That may be too much for us. We don’t want to bring on another disaster.’’
Lest the fight against malaria and saving the environment become a disaster of competing goals, the rest of the world must go full throttle. A DDT-free world is only possible if we help Africa access the prevention it needs.
Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com. 