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Environment is a Big Yawn in the South

by Mark Richardson
AT the source of the River Nile, deep tn the pearl of Africa, is a tiny heap of rusting botlletops.
It was left there In March by a group of journalists concerned for the African environment. too busy thinking about Invisible holes in the ozone layer to notice what was gpthertng at their feet.
Wc had stopped beside the river for a drink, about 30 of us. and popped open bottles of Fanta and Pepsi. The tops fell on the ground and lay among the grass roots, where they were Ignored and left to rust.
No one will picl\ them up. those bottlctops. even though they can slice a fatal tetanus Infection into any bare fool that stumbles along. It's an environmental story in Its own small way. but few people anywhere In the world would think It Important enough to consider.
It's a small example, though, of how environmental reporting In the Third World is suffering from mixed priorities. apathy and Ignorance.
The drive to Uganda's source of the Nile came on the third day of a four-day workshop organised In Uganda by Gemini News Service. It was Intended to encourage and Improve environmental report Ing in Africa, and was attended by curious Journalists from across the continent. Such reporting, according to Wafula Oguttu. editor of Kampala's Influential Weekly Topic newspaper, is often considered "an unnecessary fuss or. at best, merely as a western-Inspired and boring intellectual exercise."
Femi AJayi. science and agriculture editor for the Daily Times of Nigeria, was more blunt. "Nobody wants to be an environmental reporter in Africa.* he said. They want a more Important beat so they
can change their cars every three years *
Unlike the North, where grassroots organisations pressure their governments to change policies toward the environment, the governments of the South must take responsibility for educating a generally Ignorant public.
In Uganda, 12 officers travel to villages throughout the country, attempting to teach the 17 million people about the dangers of cutting trees for clearance or charcoal. as well as over-cultivating land and draining wetland areas for crops
Such a massive task needs the help of the media, but readers arc not interested in seemingly endless stories of deforestation, toxic waste and invisible ozone holes.
"Environment is still the most boring topic in the Weekly Topic." said Oguttu.
The disappearance of the forests, for example, is one of
the biggest stories in Africa, with repercussions around the world. Few Africans want to know. Millions of trees are taken to fuel cooking fires, but there Is little point in producing articles that warn of global climate changes when the only alternative fuel, kerosene, is scarce and expensive.
It la difficult for people to relate to the big stories they see on television, read in the newspaper or — most common in the Third World — hear on the radio. And while "getting down to the grassroots* was the most stressed catchphrase of the workshop, few Journalists know what the grassroots arc.
Certainly none of the reporters who took the drive to the Nile's source gave a second thought to buying goat kebabs and roasted bananas from the stalls we visited along the way.
Wc tut-tutted at the char-
coal vendor and took his photograph beside the sacks of charcoal, quaintly (and practically) covered with banana leaves, but we were happy to buy food cooked over that charcoal.
And we bought bananas from the stalls set up illegally in the forest to cater to tourists.
This was the grassroots, but we couldn't see the trees for the charcoal.
Journalists have the poten-Ual to be among the most Influential people in society, yet many are so preoccupied with looking for corruption and large-scale abuse that the smaller abuses, including their own. arc ignored.
In the Third World, they are given little encouragement or initiative to become environmentally aware. The responsibility or their training, says Oguttu, lies with the industrialised Northern countries.
"Forests in the Third World are estimated to consume about 50 per cent of the- carbon dioxide produced 1n the North. Without these forests in the South, the North would be heavily polluted by their numerous vehicles and factories," he says.
"It Is therefore logical that the North comes in and pays for the preservation of these forests.
Such funds should then be used Io meet the costs of training journalists and other communicators in the skills of reporting the environment, and for preparation and dissemination of all types of environmental education material.'
There are many more environmental stories than Just deforestation, of course.
Northern journalists consider the environment to be perhaps the biggest store on the planet, yet few Third World press agencies can afford the luxury of an environmental specialist. When such an assignment occurs. such as at the source of the River Nile, much of the story Is missed.
At the river, it was possible to wander out into some rusty girders poking into the water and place a hand in the Nile and another hand in Lake Victoria.
The waterfall that John Speak saw when he explored the lake in 1860 was flooded away when the Nile was dammed.
The Owen Falls dam provides barely enough electricity for the district and power cuts in Kampala are frequent. The obvious, big story is that a beautiful and historic site has been sacrificed for an inefficient government project, but few would care.
Most Ugandans do not have the luxury of an electrical supply, and nor do they care for the explorations of a foreign adventurer. What they do understand, though, is that people will starve to death when they cannot open their mouths to eat after catching lookjaw, or tetanus, from a nisty wound.
The story — our bottletops — was gathering at our feet, but we were too busy peering across the river to notice.
— Gemini News
Mark Richardton, a Canadian Journalist with the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. at tended the Environmental Reporting tn Africa workshop as a representative oj the Gemini News Service. The workshop was sponsored by UNICEF and the Canadian International Development Agency, and his participation was sponsored by the Commonwealth Secretariat