Rural households in Fort Portal have resorted to energy saving technologies as a measure of adapting to the effects of climate change.
In Kidukuru and Nyabukara villages, 70% of the households are now using the stoves, which have reduced on fuel wood consumption, deforestation has reduced and carbon emissions have gone down.
The stove which is constructed using bricks and mud has three pots, meaning food can be cooked on the pots simultaneously using the same energy source. It also has an outlet, which releases the carbon emissions.
Households started using the technology following the rampant deforestation in the area and the effects of the smoke from firewood, on the health of women.
In most of the homes visited by Uganda Radio Network reporter, the stoves were in plenty in the kitchens.
Christine Bagonza, a resident of Kidukuru village, says that following the introduction of the technology, there has been reduction of excessive consumption of firewood, which has limited women from traveling long distances to collect firewood. She says that in the past women were often sexually harassed whenever they collected firewood far away from their homes.
Bagonza also says that women and the environment are no longer exposed to the carbon emissions because the technology eliminates direct contact with the flames.
Following the embracing of the technology, a group of more than 200 women in the village have been trained on how to make the stoves and are now selling them to earn an income.
Fred Businge, the chairperson of the village environment committee, says that in the past two years, residents have cut several trees from Kidukuru forest for charcoal and firewood.
Businge states that with effect from next year, all households will be required to use the energy saving stoves. He says that currently the response of the households to the technology is positive, because they have been sensitised on the importance of the stoves.
He however says that some of the households can’t afford the cost of the stove, which goes for 25,000 shillings.
//Cue in: “Response is positive…
Cue out: …people give up.”//
According to the 2006/2007 state of environment report, Uganda's population relies on biomass - usually wood - for cooking and heating in rural and urban areas alike, and this has put pressure on the forests from which the fuel comes from.
Studies by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) indicate that climate change and its effects will continue to pose danger in the world if efforts to reduce it through environmentally-friendly practices are not adopted.
