NEEDED CHANGE: Transitioning from environmental illiteracy to environmental literacy in Uganda

By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

What is Literacy?

Literacy, at its core, is the ability to read and write. More broadly, it encompasses the skills and knowledge needed to effectively communicate and understand information in various forms, including oral and digital contexts. 

This includes understanding and using language for various purposes, such as generating and expressing ideas, interacting with others, and participating in social, environmental, academic and intellectual activities. 

It includes the ability to think critically, reason from many angles, generate different or alternative analyses in newer ways, critique and engage in different discourses, even in Artificial Intelligence discourseand social media discourses, without disciplinary limitations.

These days one is adequately literate if one can integrate knowledge interdisciplinarily, crossdisciplinarily, transdisciplinarily, extradisciplinarily or non-disciplinarily. Therefore, to be literate means to be able to transcend human-made barriers or borders in our brains, which limit our thinking and make it narrow, and go beyond simplicity towards embracing complexity.To this end, adequately literate people despise simplicity and value complexity.

Types of Literacy

There are types of literacy such as reading and writing literacy, numerical literacy, financial literacy, social literacy, economic literacy, digital literacy, health literacy, cultural literacy, spiritual literacy, ethical literacy, moral literacy, media literacy, emotional/physical literacy, ecological literacy and environmental literacy. 

We can talk of critical thinking literacy, cortical reasoning literacy, critical reading literacy, critical writing literacy, critical analysis literacy, critical discourse literacy, Artificial Intelligence literacy and social media literacy.

We can also talk of disciplinary literacy, interdisciplinary literacy, crossdisciplinary literacy, transdisciplinary literacy and extradisciplinary or non-disciplinary literacy. All these types of literacy, apart from disciplinary literacy, enable the ones that possess them to integrate and generate knowledge in different ways. Those who can do that are not slow thinkers or narrow-minded people, and they love knowledge or generating knowledge to produce new knowledge, without fear of being criticised or challenged. They enjoy producing new ideas or theories in the market place of ideas and theories. They do not hesitate to venture into restrictive social political or intellectual environments. Let me say a little about each of these different literacies.

Disciplinary Literacy

Disciplinary literacy is the ability to preserve, multiply and ward off critique of disciplinary cultures from outside the disciplines. Disciplinary literacy depends on how effective knowledge workers in a disciplinary culture can protect each other and discard those who do not fit in. The knowledge workers write for each other rather than for those outside the disciplines. They promote and reward each other as well as tame each other to socially survive in the disciplines.

Integrative Literacies

Unfortunately, the new integrative knowledge cultures and literacies of interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary and extradisciplinarity (or nondisciplinarity are exposing its capacity to address the complex problems of the world and restricting the employability of disciplinary knowledge workers in a world of practice dominated by internet and artificial knowledge and requiring broader knowledge and more interaction between knowledge workers beyond disciplinary cocoons. They are helping to demystify disciplinary literacy

Interdisciplinary Literacy

Interdisciplinary literacy is the ability to critique disciplinary cultures and work effectively across disciplines.

Crossdisciplinary Literacy

Crossdisciplinary literacy is about understanding how literacy practices, including reading and writing vary across different academic disciplines. It is bout recognising that each field has its own unique way of communicating and representing knowledge. Instead of just general reading and writing skills, crossdisciplinary literacy focuses on how those skills are applied within specific subject areas like biology, history, etc

Transdisciplinary Literacy

Transdisciplinary literacy involves combining knowledge from multiple disciplines to address complex real-world problems, fostering a holistic understanding of the world beyond traditional academic fields. It emphasises collaboration, critical thinking, critical reasoning and the ability to engage with different perspectives and knowledge systems

Extradisciplinary Literacy (Or Non-disciplinary Literacy)

Extra disciplinary literacy in essence refers to the ability to effectively engage with knowledge, skills and methods that extend beyond the boundaries of a specific discipline or field of knowledge and practice. It is about understanding and applying knowledge from different areas, fostering a more holistic and interconnected approach to learning and problems. This literacy characterises or characterised our traditional indigenous African cultures before they were penetrated by colonialists.

All the different types of literacy have their opposites I could write an essay on each of these types of literacy illiteracy. However, in this article I want to focus on environmental literacy and environmental illiteracy; actually, on “Transitioning from Environmental Illiteracy to Environmental Literacy in Uganda”.

Environmental Literacy

Environmental literacy is crucial for understanding the intricate relationships between human systems and the natural world. It encompasses knowledge of ecological principles, environmental issues, and sustainable practices.

Some key aspects of environmental literacy include:

1. Appreciating that we are part of and not apart from the environment.
2. Appreciating that humanity is integral to the environment and that the environment is integral to humanity.
3. Appreciating that the environment is not just physical but also non-physical, with four dimensions: ecological-biological (the physical), sociocultural (nonphysical), socioeconomic (non-physical) and time or temporal dimension (non-physical).
4. Understanding that each dimension constitutes one-quarter or 25% of the total environment.
5. Understanding that environmental problems arise when the equilibrium between the four dimensions of the environment is upset, or when humanity seeks to maximise benefits in one dimension at the expense of the others.
6. Appreciating that the dimensions of the environment are not mutually exclusive but mutually inclusive and that they are also multidimensional.
7. Understanding that most changes take place in the sociocultural dimension of the environment where our cultures, ethics, moralities, psychologies, knowledges, understandings, wisdoms, insights and spiritualities are located in relation to the total environment
8. Understanding ecosystems, habitats, microhabitats, biodiversity, species distributions and extinctions, food chains and food webs, and biotic and nature rights.
9. Recognising the impact of human activities on the environment in its different dimensions.
10. Familiarity with the ideas of sustainability, sustainable practices and renewable energy sources.
11. Awareness of the policy-making process, environmental policies and conservation efforts.
12. Awareness of ideas such as environmental governance, environmental stupidity, environmental ignorance, environmental militarism, environmental education, environmental management and environmental conservation.
13. Awareness of the linkages between culture and the environment and how these linkages maintain or sustain the biocultural landscapes, natural belonging and natural identities.
14. Understanding how environmental learning, conservation and management can best be promoted by education if the social science territory, arts (or humanities) territory) and natural science territory of knowledge organisation and production are not delinked.
15. Understanding the value of social science and political science in the conservation and management of the environment and nature.
16. Understanding why continuing with stressing disciplines of knowledge (disciplinarity) and the way the produce knowledge and practice conservation and management of the environment and nature will never succeed in the enterprise.
17. Recognising the success in conservation and management of the environment and nature will only be possible if our universities open up to the new and different strategies of knowledge production, namely: interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity (non-disciplinarity) which maximise human interaction for conservation and management of the environment in that order.

When one is knowlegible, aware, concerned and ready to take action to promote all these different key aspects of environmental literacy, one is really adequately environmentally-literate. Unfortunately, today we lack the cadre of people active in knowledge production and engaged in environmental conservation and management that are adequately environmentally literate. It is worse among those who make policies to govern the environment.

We have to promote environmental literacy for everyone from bottom to top of society, and especially for those who say and manifest as leaders because all environmental problems and issues begin with the leaders and end with the leaders.

By promoting environmental literacy, we can empower individuals to make informed decisions and take action to protect the planet. We must work concertedly to ensure that we begin to have environmentally literate governance of not only the environment, nature, country and region, such as the Nile Basin region of Africa, but the whole Planet Earth; our only home.

Environmentally-literate governance refers to decision-making processes and policies that incorporate a deep understanding of environmental issues, sustainability, and ecological principles. This approach considers the long-term impacts of governance on the environment and prioritizes sustainable development. Environmentally-literate governance can lead to more effective environmental protection, sustainable development, and improved human well-being. It will definitely lead to changes in the military and political attitudes of leaders and rulers whose decisions, choices and actions are the primary causes of environmental decay and collapse.

The Key characteristics of environmentally-literate governance include:

1. Understanding that the future of environmental conservation and management is and should be in the hands of current and future generations of the youth.
2. Understanding that working to raise the environmental curiosity of the young people by ensuring they adequately interact with wildlife in the wild or in the zoos.
3. Promoting Informed policy-making whereby environmental decisions are based on scientific research and environmental data, instead of the decisions, choices and actions of one person who happens to be the President of a country.
4. Promoting sustainable resource conservation and management wherein governance prioritises conservation and efficient use of naturalresources.

3. Promoting environmental accountability wherein leaders and rulers are held accountable for environmental stewardship and their mistakes and failures to take appropriate actions to conserve and manage the environment wisely.

4. Promoting stakeholder engagement wherein environmental governance involves diverse stakeholders, including citizens, experts and communities.

In short environment literacy in its widest sense is what we need to meaningfully and effectively conserve and manage the environment in the 21st Century and beyond.

Environmental Illiteracy

Environmental illiteracy is the opposite of environmental literacy. It refers to a lack of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, insights and skills related to environmental issues, problems, concepts and challenges. It reflects narrowness of conception of what the environment is. It encompasses a deficit in the ability to make informed decisions about environmental matters, engage in responsible environmental behaviour and contribute to solutions for environmental problems, issues and challenges in time and space.

Key aspects of environmental illiteracy include:

1. Lack of knowledgeA deficiency in understanding fundamental environmental concepts, ecological relationships, and the causes and consequences of environmental issues.
2. Limited understanding of complex systems:Difficulty grasping the interconnectedness of environmental systems, the impact of human actions on ecosystems, and the complexities of environmental problems.
3. Absence of skills for informed decision-making:Inability to analyze environmental information, evaluate different perspectives, and make reasoned choices about environmental issues.
4. Reduced motivation for environmental action:A lack of awareness, concern, or understanding of the importance of environmental protection, leading to less engagement in pro-environmental behaviors.

Consequences of environmental illiteracy include:

1. Reduced ability to address environmental challenges:Individuals may struggle to understand the urgency of environmental problems and the need for action.
2. Limited engagement in environmental solutions:A lack of understanding and awareness can hinder participation in environmental initiatives and advocacy efforts.
3. Inadequate support for environmental policies:People may be less likely to support environmental regulations and policies if they do not understand the need for them or the potential benefits.
4. Increased environmental damage:A lack of environmental literacy can lead to unsustainable practices and behaviors that harm the environment.

It is because of environmental illiteracy:

1.  That universities continue to retain or design environmentally-deficient disciplinary curricula and resist interdisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and extradisciplinary (nondisciplinary) curricula.
2. That we continue to teach learners that we are apart from, not part of the environment.
3. That we continue to design environmentally-illiterate policies.
4. That we continue to govern the environment as if it is just for exploitation.
5. That we continue to initiate projects and programmes in our environment that are environmentally illiterate.
6. That we continue to burden our environment with genetically modified seeds
7. That we continue to burden our environments with plastics, organic pesticides and herbicides and industrial fertilisers
8. That we disconnect traditional cultures from the land and the lakes.
9. That we continue to tolerate invasive nomadic pastoralists to extend their grazing systems into traditional cultural agroecological farming systems that are conservation-oriented.
10. That we continue to militarise and are now over-militarising our environment.
11. That we continue to deny humanity environmentally-literate governance of Planet Earth.

Transition from Environmental illiteracy to Environmental Literacy

It is getting too late for us to transition from environmental illiteracy to environmental literacy It is possible to transition from environmental illiteracy to environmental literacy. The transition can be achieved through appropriate environmental education designed to produce adequately environmentally-literate people as detailed in this article. Both formal and informal environmental education is necessary. Community engagement in environmental initiatives is important. It is necessary to ensure that time-tested strategies of community conservation and management, for example, through agroecological farming, are promoted where the environment gains immensely from community participation. Environmental education will gain immensely if curricula accommodate the strategy of analog forestry, which is a response to the truism that we cannot completely rediscover our past environmental-ecological-biological history. Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2025) stated that the idea of analog forestry needs to be integrated in school and university curricula because superior to other methods of regreening biocultural landscapes where natural forests were integral to the landscapes but have been receding because human activities.  The method can be used to restore our agroecological systems to enhance food security. However, if nomadic pastoral people from elsewhere continue to have a field day on our biocultural landscapes, the method won’t be applicable and our agroecological farming systems will continue to disappear. This will be confounded by the ecologically and environmentally empty socioeconomic models such as Myooga, Operation Wealth Creation and Parish Development Model, which only focus on financial and economic gains of the beneficiaries at the expense of natural ecologies and environments.

Conclusion

We must stop displaying environmental deception and begin to pursue environmental development, which takes in account all the dimensions of the environment in equal measure. However, one of the biggest problems facing a country like Uganda is the rise and rise of presidentialism whereby the President can involve himself in everything small and big at the expense of the environment, people and institutions. Unless we have an environmentally-literate institution of President, we are bound to continue moving more and more away from environmentally-literate environmental conservation and management to the detriment of our environmental future.Our environmental will continue to be increasingly rich in genocide, ecocide, ethnocide and intellectual death.

Critical thinking, cultural competency, the ability to meet challenges and navigate differences and stewardship of our environment are necessary to thrive on our fast-changing planet.

For God and My Country.

Prof. Oweyegha-Afunaduula is a member of Center for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis