Environment Corruption Worst Evil Written by Robert Ddamulira

YOUNG PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION: THE PRACTICING
ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION (PEMO)
Written by Ddamulira Robert

Executive Director
Practicing Environmental Managers Organization (PEMO)
P. O. Box 8957, Kampala
Mob: +256712582723
Email: jermain_dr2002@yahoo.com
Web: www.pemo.wordpress.com
Table of contents
“Knowledge is nothing unless shared”
ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................4
THE DEVIL’S SNARE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION ....................................................5
RECOGNIZING THE ELUSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION IN UGANDA....................6
YOUNG PEOPLE AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION PEMO STYLE:.......................7
Fighting Environmental Ignorance:...................................................................................................7
Schools’ Environmental Practice Club (SEPC).............................................................................8
Roadshow Community Dialogues.................................................................................................8
TV SHOWS...................................................................................................................................9
Weekly Radio Programmes..........................................................................................................10
Research.......................................................................................................................................10
Fighting Poverty...............................................................................................................................10
Creating Employment for Graduate Environmentalists...............................................................12
Trees for poverty alleviation........................................................................................................12
Fighting poverty through Participatory planning in Namuwongo slum......................................13
Sustainable Organic Agriculture (SOA)......................................................................................14
CHALLENGES AND LESSONS:......................................................................................................14
REPLICATING PEMO.......................................................................................................................15
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................15
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 2

freepemo@yahoo.com, www.pemo.wordpress.com
ABSTRACT
Corruption 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.
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
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

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 UGANDA

3.1 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%.
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

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
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
Empowerment on environmental rights still
government environmental agencies. At a
needed to avoid slum-related diseases
community gathering venue, our SEPC In Jambula, Kampala the communities ranked
unplanned houses high on the list of main
through music, drama and poetry, attracts a
environmental problems, only two houses had
large crowd, we break the music, do the plans, a house with 34 tenants had no pit latrine,
public latrines are locked at night. The residents
sensitization about the causes and effects of
construct at night to avoid urban authorities from
environmental corruption, distribute stopping them. Those who see them neither exert
pressure on them to stop nor report them to
awareness material and as the crowd loses
authorities. Such indifference is a reflection of
interest and begins to disperse, the SEPC does lack of understanding of the likely negative
impacts of these actions and lack of empowerment
the music again, attracting an even bigger
among the urban residents. There is a need to
crowd, we sensitize again and again. invest in empowering urban communities to
demand their right to a clean and health
environment. Short of that urban planning
4.4 This has been an effective strategy in standards will continue to be abused and people
will also continue to exert negative impacts on
promoting en masse awareness about
their neighbours. (UNDP, 2005)
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 SHOWS
4.5 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.

Weekly Radio Programmes

4.6 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.
Research
4.7 Whenever
a key
environmental
issue arises, PEMO
has always
Fig. 1Environmental corruption in Uganda: This is Mabira mobilized masses

forest currently being considered between the president and a sugar
through applied research whose findings they use to
cane investor for sugarcane growing.
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 Poverty
Nobody is too rich that they lack nothing
Nobody is too poor that they can offer nothing
Aristotle
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
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;
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.
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.

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 Environmentalists

4.12 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.
Launching the 5 million tree project
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

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
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.

REPLICATING PEMO
6.0 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
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.

References
Among Barbra (2006) The East African, Uganda Power crisis worsens as Lake Victoria levels
drop, No. 620 Page 1
Cohen, Nick (2006). When giving to the poor lines the pockets of the rich in the Guardian
Weekly (September 22-28, 2006) Vol. 175/No. page 13
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
World Bank, 2006. World Development Report 2007 (Development and the next generation)
World Bank Publications Washington DC, USA.


Environment Corruption Worst Evil Written by Robert Ddamulira

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Environment Corruption Worst Evil Written by Robert Ddamulira

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

YOUNG PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION: THE PRACTICING

ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION (PEMO)

Written by Ddamulira Robert

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 2

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

THE DEVIL’S SNARE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 5

RECOGNIZING THE ELUSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION IN UGANDA

YOUNG PEOPLE AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION PEMO STYLE:

Fighting Environmental Ignorance:

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 7

Schools’ Environmental Practice Club (SEPC)

Scenes from SEPC

Roadshow Community Dialogues

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 9

Weekly Radio Programmes

Fig. 1Environmental corruption in Uganda: This is Mabira mobilized masses

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

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 11

Creating Employment for Graduate Environmentalists

Trees for poverty alleviation.

Launching the 5 million tree project

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 12

Fighting poverty through Participatory planning in Namuwongo slum

Sustainable Organic Agriculture (SOA)

CHALLENGES AND LESSONS:

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

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 14

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 16

Department for International Development (DFID), 2000. Achieving sustainability; poverty

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

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

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

Practicing Environmental Managers’ Organization, P. O. Box 8957, Kampala Mob: +256712582723 17

You might also like