City leaders launched a campaign to plant one million trees across Fort Portal and the broader Tooro Kingdom in memory of the late Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV.
Margaret Muhanga Mugisa, the member of Parliament for Fort Portal North Division,who led the tree-planting effort said the initiative aims to preserve the legacy of the late king, who was a champion of environmental conservation.
Muhanga said the campaign will honor the king while also contributing to environmental conservation and beautification of the kingdom.
Elizabeth Kengozi the Deputy Mayor of Fort Portal Central Division, said the tree-planting campaign was a fitting tribute to King Oyo because of his passion for environmental conservation.
She urged residents, institutions and businesses to take care of the trees planted under the campaign and ensure they are not destroyed.
Anna Kasemire a resident of Fort Portal said planting trees was a meaningful way of preserving the King’s legacy because the trees would continue benefiting future generations.
Julius Musinguzi said the campaign should not just end with the mourning period but should become a continuous environmental conservation program across the kingdom.
He urged residents to protect the newly planted trees from destruction, saying planting them would have little meaning if they were not properly maintained.
On Saturday, the City launched a five-day cleaning exercise as part of the mourning activities for King Oyo. The cleaning continued on Monday, with city leaders calling on residents to participate in keeping the City clean.
Rukidi IV campaigned on environmental conservation in the later years of his reign, including a “Save River Mpanga Now” campaign addressing pollution and siltation of the Mpanga River, which supplies Fort Portal’s water and flows through Kibale Natinaal Park to Lake George. In 2019, amid local concern over pollution of the Mpanga River, Rukidi IV joined community efforts to desilt the river and remove solid waste, taking part in the clean-up himself. King Oyo actively leveraged his cultural position to champion environmental preservation, ecosystem restoration, and Climate Change awareness in Uganda
In July and August 2022, he led a high-profile 10-day “Rwenzori Royal Expedition,” becoming the first reigning monarch to successfully scale Mount Stanleys Margherita Peak the highest point in Uganda at 5,109 metres (16,762 ft) Organized in partnership with UNDP) and the Uganda Tourism Board, the historic climb aimed to draw global attention to the rapid melting of equatorial glaciers on the Rwenzori Mountains caused by climate change. The trek also highlighted the urgent need for conserving fragile mountain ecosystems and promoting sustainable adventure tourism as an alternative economic livelihood for local communities under the campaign “Conserving Mountain Ecosystems. The historic journey was later documented in a promotional film titled King Oyo Royal Rwenzori Mountain Expedition, which premiered internationally at the Legacy International Center in San Diego California in 2023,
In 2019, King Oyo launched a five-year environmental campaign to plant 10 million trees across the Tooro Kingdom to address regional deforestation, combat severe droughts, and restore the indigenous tree cover.
