TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT EACOP MUST GO ON

I had a déjà vu moment last week seeing some breathless young lady accost French President Emmanuel Macron entreating him to stop the development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

The EACOP is the 1400 km pipeline that will evacuate Ugandan oil from western Uganda to the Tanzanian port city of Tanga.

The earnest young lady explained that the pipeline (As if Macron does not know) that the pipeline would encourage the use of fossil fuels which are major driver behind climate change, whose effects are manifest in droughts, floods and even the increased frequency of sand storms the middle east is suffering currently.

It took me back nearly 20 years when all sorts of activists jumped out of the woodwork to protest the development of the 250 MW Bujagali dam. Led by the local agents of an NGO called the International Rivers Network.

The anti-Bujagali lobby argued at the time that damming the river would displace hundreds and destroy the scenic beauty of the area.

"So that time they could not hide behind climate change, especially since hydroelectricpower is one of the most ecofriendly energy sources, they argued for scenic beauty...

One local activist was quoted as saying at the time, "The real issue in Uganda is not electricity but poverty. Currently the majority of Ugandans have no money for electricity, for they are below the poverty line. Production of more electricity will not reduce use of fuelwood and charcoal until deliberate programs are evolved to reduce poverty and the cost of power."

Since Bujagali came on line in 2012 – the world has not collapsed around our ears, but in fact, more than a million households have been hooked up to the grid. Those are a thousand families who left to find their own devices without electricity, would have used kerosene lamps or diesel generators for their lighting at night or used more charcoal in their kitchens and would have been less productive.

Access to power is just below 50 percent today but this is a far cry to the just over five percent of the population who had access to power before Bujagali came online.

It would be interesting to see how much more economic activity has resulted from this development and further still how many people were lifted out of poverty or at least saw their incomes increase as a consequence.

I want to bet that the Bujagali activists now live in houses – they probably built with their paychecks from the campaign, powered by the dam fought so vehemently.

"The anti-Bujagali activists were dead wrong then as the anti-EACOP campaigners are today....

In fact, to stop these developments will be to damage further the very environment they claim to be seeking to protect.

Because it is true that in our part of the world the biggest cause of environmental degradation, is not the fat cats who are reclaiming wetlands for construction, but the poor who have decimated 90 percent of our forest cover in search of new farmland and firewood for their survival.

The history of poverty eradication is quite clear. Countries interested in doing so, exploit their natural endowments to create economic activity, which leads to a rise in incomes across the board and therefore reduction in poverty. In some countries they have done it so well they have surplus resources to bankroll a welfare state, where everyone is entitled to an income in or out of a job. This did not happen by wishful thinking.

"Because we do not have the luxury of enslaving people or colonizing other countries to push economic growth, we have to employ what we have, that is our natural resources and our people. Our confusion about how to do this – due partly to the handsome paychecks from foreign environmental lobbyists, means we are not even doing a good job on this front.

That being said the exploitation of these resources can be done in a way that does not cause irreparable damage to our environment. As it stands now voluminous environmental impact assessments have been carried on the project and provisions have been put in place to mitigate against the damage to the environment to the extent possible. This is not the Niger delta.

If we are truly sincere about conserving the environment we should be poring over these reports to ensure every possible measure was taken to conserve the environment.

The increased revenues to government and to the private citizens involved in the industry, have the potential to improve the provision of public goods and social services that will give more and more people a chance to climb out of poverty.

You do not fight poverty by dishing out money at street corners but by empowering people through better education and health to take advantage of and to create new economic activity.

So if to banish poverty takes the exploitation of our natural endowments and some do-gooder, clearly who knows better than us what is best for us, is fighting this time tested progression, you have to wonder what their intentions are.

"To be charitable to them I would say they are ignorant parotters of slogans on an issue they have no clue about (African poverty), he more cynical view would be that, it is in their interest to remain in our state of under development so our living standards do not rise to their level, because they would have to better share the globe’s resources...

The latter is the conspiracy theory I choose to favour.