Celebrity personalities musician Irene Ntale, Maurice Kirya and comedian Anne Kansiime have scooped big after being appointed as the ‘poaching steals from us all’ campaign ambassadors last Monday morning, 16th October 2017 at a press conference held at Sheraton Hotel in Kampala.
The mass awareness campaign manned by Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is aimed at appealing to the public to stop poaching wildlife in Uganda’s national parks after a variety of species has been declared to be in total danger from human attacks mainly poachers.
According to Uganda Wildlife Authority Director for Conservation John Makombo, Uganda is likely to lose up to 10% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) if it does not control poaching of wild animals, within and outside protected areas since the country depends on wildlife based tourism; where tourists support many sectors such as; transport, hotels and agriculture.
“When tourists get into the country they hire cars, sleep in a hotel and they eat food and when they go to tracking gorillas they also spend on crafts,”said Makombo.
The ‘Stamina Daddy’ singer together with Anne Kansiime and Maurice Kirya will join the Uganda cranes and several others, expected to convince the public against the poaching of wild animals.
“About 400,000 elephants are left in Africa and about 40,000 elephants are poached every year, a worry that the continent will be left with no elephants in the coming 10 years, hence the Uganda Wildlife Authority in partnership with the International organization, Wild Aid and Uganda Conservation Foundation with the campaign ‘poaching steals from us all’ to encourage the public become friends of the wildlife and the media will also come aboard as the programme will be rolled out in several Ugandan languages”, said UWA deputy director, field operations Charles Tumwesigye.
“This is in form of TV documentaries, shorts, public service announcements, billboards, social media events and other outreach aimed at instilling sense of pride in wildlife heritage of the country and desire to protect it” he added.
