Uganda is joining other countries to commemorate the world wildlife day that was declared by the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly on 20th December 2013. The assembly proclaimed the 3rd – of March every year as the official day of celebrating this day.
This day was made to celebrate many beautiful and varied forms of wild Fauna and Flora and to create awareness on the benefits of conservation to humanity.
The 2024 World Life Day theme is”connecting people and the planet, exploring digital innovation,offer Unique Opportunities to redefine the connection between the people and the planet.”
Regardless of the poaching character that has become a point of concern, Uganda has very many good reasons for commemorating this day.
The Government of Uganda has successfully reintroduced Rhino’s in Uganda which had gone extinct in the early 1980s. The initial population of 8 has successfully bred and multiplied to the current population of 32 individuals.
The number of mountain gorillas has also increased from 320 to 459 between 1999 and 2022.
The improved conservation has yielded promising results with the population on the steady recovery for instance, between 1983 and 202. Buffalo’s increased from 25000 to 44,163, elephants rose from 2000 to 7,975 and giraffes increased from 350 to 2,072.
Uganda recorded 1,249 species of butterflies and therefore Uganda must join the rest of the world to celebrate this significant endowment.
11% of the World’s recorded species of bird (50% African bird species richness) 8%of the global mammal diversity ( 39% of African mammal richness) 19% of Amphibian species richness and 14% of African reptile specie.
Uganda is ranked among the top most host biodiversity rich countries globally since it hosts to 53.9% of the world’s remaining population.
The wild life is mostly affected by the human activities such as agriculture,road construction in wild areas, poaching and settlement.
The increasing population of Uganda is also affecting the World Life as people keep on encroaching the wild areas and due to poverty end up feeding on the beautiful Flora and Fauna.
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The Future Of Our Tourism Industry.
Though Uganda is ranked to be among the top countries with a variety of wild life species in Africa, our tourism industry is still lagging behind partly because of the insufficient investments we inject in the industry, despite the fact that it is among the sectors that bring in more revenue within the country.
If you look at countries like Rwanda, they have invested heavily in their tourism industry to an extent of advertising with international football teams like Arsenal, which we all know that it is very expensive to get advertising space on jerseys and other advertising platforms of such a club. But they so it worth for their tourism industry and i am very sure they are enjoying the returns.
According to Uganda Tourism Board, Uganda experienced a significant increase on the number of tourists visiting our different tourism sites in 2022, scaling up our revenue up to UGX 2.7 trillion, compared to UGX 1.88 trillion in 2021.
This clearly shows you that if we increase on the investments we input in our tourism industry, our returns will also increase in terms of revenue, market for our foodstuffs produced by the local people and more employment opportunities will be created within the industry which will reduce poverty levels with in the country
