Uganda hotels to join in on Earth Hour

Saturday, March 27 will see the globally-marked Earth Hour once again take hold, with cities, businesses, and hotels hopefully once more participating by switching off all unnecessary lights, except those for security purposes. The World Wildlife Fund, also known in short as WWF, is the main promoter of this initiative, aiming at creating added awareness of the need to combat global warming and do something about the rising tide of climate change.

In Uganda, several hotels are participating in the event, and notably Emily Wissanji, general manager of Geo Lodges Uganda was the first to commit observing the event in all their four lodges, namely Nile Safari Lodge, Jacana Safari Lodge, Rain Forest Lodge, and Silver Back Lodge. Others who committed themselves promptly were the Sheraton Kampala Hotel (who also mentioned that Starwood Hotels would globally participate in this event once again), the Imperial Hotel Group, and Speke Hotels (comprising the Speke Hotel, the Commonwealth Resort, and the Speke Resort in Munyonyo).

It was pointed out to this correspondent while discussing the issue with leading hoteliers in Kampala, that the unreliable power supply in the country is already “blacking out areas involuntarily every day”, and while it was fine for the developed world to participate in the global Earth hour events, countries with insufficient electricity supply will find it hard to make a point there.

Said one respondent, “This is like asking a starving person to go on a diet,” while another added, “The irregular supply by our electricity company already does this for us, several times every week, at times several times a day, whether we like it or not.”