UGANDANS, THEIR ENVIRONMENT, CIVILIZATION AND SOMETHING IN BETWEEN.

If the Mayan civilization had known what we now know, it would still be here today. However, their grand and prosperous civilization that thrived for over six centuries suddenly disappeared in less than a century. It now lies in ruins, in the shadows of its former glory. The profound silencing of the Mayas testifies to one of the greatest demographic disasters in human prehistory - the demise of a once vibrant society. The Mayan civilization of South America was an advanced and next-age community of their time. More or less like todays North America compared to pre-colonial Africa. Before Christ (BC), they studied the stars and developed sophisticated calendars. At their peak around 900 A.D, their population numbered over 500 people per square mile in rural areas and their cities teamed with people that would make Kampalas population pale in comparison. They were more than 2,000 people per square mile in the cities - comparable to modern day Los Angeles (NASA, 2011). The Mayan civilization thrived for close to six centuries - then, for some reason everything stopped. The civilization was seemingly erased from the face of the earth; it collapsed and disappeared into oblivion. What caused this tragic Mayan collapse? It is no longer disputable; the primary force behind the Maya civilization collapse was environmental degradation, particularly deforestation that set in motion over environmental catastrophes such as famine, disease, high temperatures and drought, which collectively led to the collapse of Mayas agro-based economy. Scientists at NASA have found that at the time of their collapse, the Maya had cut down most of the trees across large swaths of the land to clear fields for growing maize to feed their burgeoning population. They also cut trees for firewood and for making building materials. They had to burn 20 large trees (probably 100+ year old) to heat the limestone for making just 1 square meter of the lime plaster they used to build their tremendous temples, reservoirs, and monuments. Life on earth is like archaeology; to understand the composition of surface soils; one must dig deep to study and understand the nature of parent rock from which the current soils were formed. Likewise to understand the state of our current affairs; we have to seek for answers in our collective past as humanity. As there is no single cause to a collapse of a grand civilization such as the Maya, NASA scientists further found that environmental degradation triggered secondary forces of destruction including loss of agricultural production, public unrest and external attacks to an already weakened civilization. These secondary forces led to the eventual total collapse of the Mayan civilization. Why did the Mayan leaders seemingly just look on as their civilization consumed itself into collapse?

With the food and tax revenues from the poor still coming in and cushioned against the diseases and other afflictions affecting the bottom Mayan poor - the Mayan kings thought that whatever was killing the poor would never get to them. When taxes failed, they just imposed harder punishments and the survivors worked harder to pay the aristocrats to continue enjoying their high life. By so doing, the Mayan kings killed their subjects in the short run and destroyed themselves and their civilization in the long run. What similarities does todays Uganda have to the pre-collapse Maya civilisation? What can Uganda learn and do to avoid such a tragic collapse? First is the population, in a few years our total population will be comparable to the Mayan civilization. At 3.2%, we are adding a net of a million new Ugandans every year and doubling our population every 20 years, from 5 million in 1948; 9.5 million in 1969 to our current 32 million (UBoS, 2010). The economic dynamics have not changed much over 70% of Ugandas population depends on subsistence agriculture as a main income earner (UNDP 2005) and fuelwood (firewood and charcoal) energy meets 93% of our annual energy needs (MEMD, 2008). This high population growth coupled with traditional use of fuelwood are the main forces behind the catastrophically high deforestation rates, which currently stand at 6000 hectares of forest loss per month (or an area equal to 6000 football pitches per month) as forests are converted into agricultural fields or fuelwood. At this rate, it is predicated that by 2025, we would have lost 70% of our pre-independence forest cover! Like the Mayas, we could as well have turned the last page of our civilization, as we know it today. NASA scientists have used computer simulations to reconstruct how the deforestation could have played a role in worsening the Mayan drought. They modelled the worst and best case scenarios: 100 percent deforestation in the Maya area and no deforestation. The results were eye opening. Loss of all the trees caused a 3-5 degree rise in temperature and a 20-30 percent decrease in rainfall. Not only did drought make it difficult to grow enough food, it also would have been harder for the Maya to store enough water to survive the dry season. Talk about Ugandas escalating food prices and run away commodity price indexes? Could the Mayan collapse have been avoided? Can we turn around Ugandas civilization fortunes? The Mayan leaders should have come down from their pyramids and recognized that whatever was taking the lives of the poor Mayans would soon or later come back for their own. They would then have put the poor mans problems at the top of their leadership agenda. We can also side-step the Mayan predicament if we bring the issues that affect the poor man and woman back onto the table of discussion across all leadership levels of decision-making. We need to speak less politics and more concrete action. Electricity is only part of the answer; less than 10% of Ugandans use it the poor people urgently need clean, affordable and sustainable energy solutions such as solar alternatives to the unhealthy kerosene lamps and fire-hazardous candles. To avoid the Mayan deforestation trap, Ugandans need to be led away from the inefficient and unhealthy three-stone cook stoves to energy-efficient cook stoves that consume over 60% less fuelwood. Ugandans need strong, committed and sustained action to support them to produce more food while using less land and manpower. They need to remain healthy so that they can honourably earn from their sweat while they till the land. We now know better we can and should avoid the Mayan style of civilization collapse. Robert Ddamulira Kampala