Diary from Makerere University

Tuesday 22. of June 2010 | 09:20 (GMT+2)

Reviving school gardens as a tool for climate change adaptation.

Class: Makerere University | By: mugisha

Climate change is the world’s greatest threat so far. Despite all the efforts brought up to mitigate it, the world especially the developed countries don’t seem to be decisive on exactly what they should as the cutting on the greenhouse gases threaten their economic prosperity. This is why the highly anticipated COP15 talks in Copenhagen only ended up in an Accord rather than a binding legal instrument. The obvious truth is that where as we wait for the big time emitters to sort themselves up, climate change impact is having its toll on poor communities especially Africa and Asia where floods, prolonged droughts as well as famine have affirmed their roots. These disasters never give warning or time to prepare; it has to be within us the citizens of the world to learn how to live with the situation. We young people are the pillars of tomorrows’ world, seeing what is going on is putting us to the taste whether we should sit-by and give a deaf ear or roll up our sleeves and do action now. School gardens School gardens used to be common especially here in Uganda in the late 90’s however as time went by, these have steadily phased out that one can hardly find one in ten schools straight. Realizing the impact of climate change, these gardens could do a great deal in climate education but more importantly in sustainable development and in achieving the objectives of Millennium development Goals since the gardens not only teach mitigation but also adaptation to climate change through steady supply of food, reduction on expenditure made in buying food as well as getting some little capital from the sales if the gardens are taken to another level. Action plan For starters we are identifying a few schools where demonstration gardens will be established. Suitably these will be the ones with little space in that we shall use big vessels to be our garden. We shall make two demarcations in the gardens one to carter for vegetables and the other will be used to grow a couple of trees which when mature enough will be  taken to other schools to start other gardens or atleast donated to the community. These demonstration gardens will play a fundamental role in practically introducing young people to the whole climate change issue since they will have hands-on experience from the exercise.  This exercise will act as a double aged sword on climate change as it will be encouraging mitigation and adaptation at once besides the building of a strong team of leadership for tomorrow world.

 

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