Mangoes, Bees and Dutch Roses

Entebbe Botanical Gardens sits on the northern shores of Lake Victoria. It has 40 hectares of manicured lawns peppered with colossal termite mounds, flora indigenous to Uganda as well as plant species from all over the world such as the Mediterranean Cypress, Bermuda Cedar, Loquat (native to China) and the Oil Palm (this tree produces the high-in-cholesterol, thick red cooking oil ubiquitous in East and West Africa). The Gardens tell the story of colonialism as well as Uganda’s engagement with the international community. Some of the trees are themselves living histories—well over three hundred years old. One of the trees had buttress roots that are waist-high.

Our tour guide was a part of Green Youth Adventures, a Ugandan group promoting environmental conservation and the restoration of traditional agricultural and horticultural knowledge and practices. Current project objectives are to visit schools throughout the southern region to teach students about the utility of indigenous trees and plants. The hope is to instill environmental awareness in youth who will, ideally, encourage environmentally conscious practices in the home such as persuading parents to plant higher utility plants in their compounds (i.e.: vegetables and fruit bearing trees) rather than flora for  simply aesthetic value.

Entry into the global capitalist economy is a double-edged sword, but it seems to come at a particularly high price for the peoples and environments of developing countries. Globalization invites stiffer competition, privatization of industries, more mechanized production, “development,” foreign investment and it is often characterized by dramatic shifts in the agricultural sectors. In Uganda land is being bought up by foreign investors who enjoy more favorable trade and development agreements with the governments than local Ugandans who struggle with land acquisition and the establishment of economically-sustaining agriculture. Consequently, the prices of produce have more than doubled.

Using mangoes as an example, our tour guide claimed that as a school child mangoes grew in abundance and neighbors would allow children to take as many mangoes from their garden as they could carry. Today they are scare and it is beyond most Ugandans economical means to purchase enough mangoes for a family breakfast.

As we continued our walking tour, the path led us to a clearing overlooking Lake Victoria. Across the lake our guide pointed to a large grey building. “You see that building over there?” he said. “That is a Dutch flower farm that grows roses.” Uganda is a gold-mine for those in the cut-flower business and Holland has maintained its historical monopoly of the industry. The rose farm is having a detrimental effect on the local environment and Botanical Gardens. The roses are drawing all of the bees—the vital pollinators of indigenous flora—to the other side of the lake and, true of many flower farms across Uganda,  they are removing  a key step in the plant reproduction cycle, ergo adversely affecting the regeneration of indigenous plants, fruits and vegetables and their market prices. No bees, no trees: less species diversification and less food to go around.

It was heartening to learn about local initiatives underway aimed at addressing these concerns.