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In OctOber 2019, the rOtary club Of
Bugolobi asked me to talk on the environ-
ment and climate change. I looked forward
to the opportunity. It would be the first time
as an activist that I’d be addressing Ugandan
professionals, many of whom were my par-
ents’ age (I’m 24). The audience would be
civic- minded middle-class men and women
who could raise awareness about the cli-
mate crisis and put pressure on the govern-
ment and the private sector. Or they could
do exactly the opposite: resist any change
they perceived as slowing down what they
considered “development” or “progress,”
and dismiss the concerns of the younger
generation.
My presentation took about 20 minutes,
after which the audience asked many ques-
tions. They seemed surprised to hear this
information from someone so young who
wasn’t an expert, but were pleased I’d helped
them understand the urgency of the prob-
lem. At one point, a man said how puzzled
he was that the ongoing degradation of the
Amazon rain forest was widely condemned,
even in Africa, and yet no one was talking
about the destruction of the Congo Basin
rain forest. As the meeting came to an end,
his statement lingered in my mind.
Why weren’t Ugandans talking about
what was happening in the Congo Basin
rain forest, especially since the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), in which about
60% of the rain forest lies, borders our
country to the west? I had no good answer
to that question, and I had never been there myself. So
I learned.
The Congo Basin rain forest ecosystem, sometimes
called the world’s “second lung,” is, like the Amazon,
rich in biodiversity. It’s also vital as a global carbon
sink, sequestering 600 million metric tons more car-
bon per year than it emits—the same amount, says
the World Economic Forum, as “one-third of the CO 2
emissions from all U.S. transportation.” The forest,
which stretches into parts of six countries, is home to
as many as 150 ethnic groups, including Indigenous
peoples such as the Batwa, Bambuti and Ba’Aka. Hu-
mans have lived in the forest for more than 50,000
years, and 75 million people today depend on it to
survive. The ecosystem contains 10,000 species of
tropical plants—many of which may provide medic-
inal benefits—as well as a thousand species of birds,
700 species of fish and 400 species of mammals, in-
cluding the black colobus monkey, which is vulnera-
ble to extinction.
Also like the Amazon, the Congo Basin is being ex-
ploited for its resources. Between 2000 and 2014, an
area of forest greater than the size of Bangladesh was
cleared in the Congo Basin. And while the rates of de-
forestation in the Amazon and Southeast Asia are higher
than in the Congo Basin, it’s facing similar ravages. Mad-
deningly, in 2020, deforestation rose globally by 12%,
including in many countries in the Congo Basin region,
despite COVID-19’s impact on the world’s economies.
Scientists have calculated that unless something
shifts dramatically, all of the Congo’s forests may be
gone by 2100.
The more I discovered what was happening to the
Congo Basin, the more upset and angry I became. Why
wasn’t I aware of this? Well, one reason is that theRAISING
AFRICA’S VOICE
By Vanessa Nakate
Nakate, 24,
founded the Rise Up
movement, which
aims to raise
awareness about
climate change
in Africa