2021 has been a turning point in our conservation journey. Having been established in 2018 as Not-for-Profit Non-Governmental Organization, Care for Rangers has been improving the welfare of rangers to be able to keep on frontline protecting wildlife and their habitats. The ever increasing threats to ecosystems have made us make a strategic change in our focus and programing to be able to sustainably attend to nature preservation. Threats to ecosystems go beyond the protection work of rangers. This is why we have transformed into Care for Nature to be able to support Uganda’s biodiversity conservation and improve livelihood of communities who live in and around sensitive ecosystems. Uganda is ranked among the top ten countries in the world with the highest biodiversity concentration, this includes more than 12 forests with large populations of primates including Bwindi and Mgahinga which have habituated mountain gorillas! Of the Africa’s 2,000 species of birds, over 1,050 are officially sighted in Uganda.
Although the country has incredible wealth of biodiversity, all of these resources continue declining and Uganda’s biodiversity is now at a critical stage, facing the greatest threats than ever before. Forests, wetlands, game parks, game reserves and community wildlife areas are being lost and degraded at one of the highest rates in the world. The total net loss of Uganda’s forests during 2000–2020 was estimated at more than 2 million hectares, equivalent to an average annual loss rate of 5%!
Uganda has one of the fastest growing population, with estimated over 45m people, equivalent to 0.59% of the total world population, with an annual population growth is 3.2%. and 84% of Ugandan live in rural areas, depending on subsistence, rain-fed agriculture. Uganda’s rapid population growth is putting immense pressure on land for settlement and cultivation, resulting into encroachment on protect areas, habitat loss, fragmentation, overexploitation of natural resources, pollution, increased cases of human-wildlife conflict, climate change and presented severe threats to wildlife resources, wildlands and livelihoods of countless poor communities, particularly those that live within and around protected and rural areas.
Care for Nature believes that if we act now and smarter, we can reverse the effects of man-engineered biodiversity threats and create a sustainable environment that embraces both development and protection of environment ecosystems that sustain our lives. Through our Care for Rangers, we address issues of wildlife poaching and human-wildlife conflicts, Care for Land addresses issues of climate change, and green agriculture while Care for Communities improves livelihoods of communities within and around protected areas. We are certain that with your support, we can develop and restore our ecosystems by balancing the needs of nature and ever increasing human demands.