Uganda government’s bid to axe a third of Mabira Forest, one of the country’s remaining patches of natural forest, to pave way for sugarcane growing has met a lot of resistance from the public and environmental activists. President Museveni however sees conservation as a luxury that cannot be afforded by poor countries seeking economic development, as “the future of all countries lies in processing goods.”

Poor countries, far from finding themselves trapped in the precautionary principle they little understand, have provided environmentalists with a tabula rasa. The writings range from discouragement to use genetically modified food, leaving the earth pristine to shunning pest control technologies that catapulted developed countries to the present level of development. One environmentalist, Gar Smith, explains that electricity is bad for Africans for it disrupts and destroys the continent’s vibrant culture. Instead of people singing and dancing on the streets, they are either glued to their TV sets or listening to music from radios. What an abuse!

There is a conflict of two visions. One is a vision of wilderness which views humans as outsiders in the natural ecosystem and the vision of wise use that views humans as integral to the ecosystem. Africans should be wary of falling prey to conservation propaganda of the wilderness, keen to alienate them from their own resource. Such propaganda includes the mindset that local communities surrounding wildlife parks and forests are a threat to the animals and trees. It has seen hunger, sickness and death befall the local communities as conservationists continue to brand them a danger to the natural resource.

Whereas the Uganda government should learn to listen to its people and stop issuing resources in a manner likely to spur racial tensions, Ugandans should also come to grips with the fact that the world is ever changing. It is not as it used to be in the days of our ancestors. Barring human beings from exploiting a resource is tantamount to comparing them to an eagle whose nest never changes. Nature should not be conserved as we would a work of art as it is not uniquely suited to the fulfillment of one purpose. Parts of nature have value according to how well they meet specific goals, unlike a painting where the highest valued use is (in most people's minds) its visual appearance.

The axing of the forest is not Uganda’s biggest problem but rather, poverty. Poverty is the biggest threat to the earth’s ecological health. A glance at the principal cities of the world shows that the environment is much better in the richer countries than in poor ones. As people get richer, their priorities change and the environment moves up in the hierarchy of their needs. When their basic needs for food, water, shelter and clothing are satisfied, they begin attaching importance on other things including the environment, and allocate resources towards it. Policies to combat pollution have been introduced in richer countries because they have the resources to implement the shift in priorities.

The Uganda government should consider making local communities own Mabira forest and benefit from it. This will give them an incentive to participate in its management. If the wilderness vision is allowed to take root, billions of people who can benefit greatly from industrialization will be condemned to poverty the rest of their life.  Africa cannot afford living in romanticization of poverty as generated by the arrogance of the white upper- middle class movements and political activists out to push agenda that are more political than ecological. What Ugandans need is economic empowerment.