Meet Ronald Musoke, an environmental journalist with The Independent Magazine in Kampala, Uganda

Please tell us your name and the country where you come from.

 My name is Ronald Musoke, and I am a print and online journalist working with The Independent Magazine in Kampala, Uganda.

What motivated you to become a journalist?

In the 1990s, my mother used to work for a British expatriate. The expatriate was an avid reader of newspapers. He used to buy The New Vision, The Monitor and The Daily Nation newspapers daily. My mother would bring the newspapers home every evening, and I would try to read as much as possible during the weekend. I started to read newspapers at a relatively young age and was fascinated by how writers would tell exciting stories about people, events, and places. I admired journalism as a career and hoped I would become one in future.

What is the most interesting part of being an environmental reporter?

 Journalism is unique because it gives you access to exclusive spaces. There are many travel opportunities and prospects to meet a diverse range of people from different walks of life. For instance, you can start your day interviewing people struggling with basic sanitation facilities in an informal settlement and end the day rubbing shoulders with some of the most influential executives at a cocktail party at a lavish hotel. For environmental journalism, you are guaranteed a lifetime of experiences. On my travels, I have been able to see, hear, smell, touch, and even taste things in the natural world, experiences that come in handy when crafting and telling stories.

What’s the most pressing environmental problem in your region?

Climate change. Our world is changing due to climatic patterns. Conflicts for limited resources are inevitable in most parts of the world as most of the population depends on the environment to survive. Some of these conflicts are among human beings, while there is also an emerging conflict between humans and wildlife. In Uganda, for instance, the human and wildlife population is growing, and the fight for resources is quickly escalating into a crisis. Climate change is exacerbating this human-wildlife conflict. People are increasingly encroaching on wildlife-protected areas as they attempt to secure their livelihoods. The daily confrontation between wildlife and human beings has impacted the ranging patterns of some wildlife, such as chimpanzees, elephants and lions. For example, the cutting down of some rain forests in western Uganda for charcoal, timber and cropland explains the spike in conflict. Climate change also appears to be affecting the fruiting seasons of some wild plants, which are a staple for Uganda’s chimpanzees. As a result, the apes invade people’s farms in search of food.

What role can the media play in reducing wildlife crime, biodiversity loss, and mitigating climate change?

I believe the media can play the role of being the watchdog. We have to keep reporting and whistleblowing environmental crimes. The media can also play a role in education. This is one of the most fundamental roles of the media. We must keep educating our societies on the critical issues in our midst and how they can act, reverse or even prevent certain things from happening. There are instances when it feels like we are preaching to the deaf, but we also know that change—positive change— never comes easy.

What are some of the challenges you have encountered as a conservation journalist?

The biggest challenge is the lack of a newsroom budget for the environment beat. Most newsrooms are currently struggling, even worse for small publications like mine. There are instances when I have to dig into my pockets to travel and report on an important story. The environmental stories cannot be reported from the newsroom; one must travel and go where the story is. There have been many times when I needed to move fast to cover a breaking story or do a follow-up, but I have dropped the idea because I was financially handicapped. Quality journalism is expensive, which is also the case for conservation journalism.

What kind of support have you received from the programme?

 Over and above the in-person hands-on training we had at the beginning of the fellowship in Kampala in 2019, my favourite part of the programme was the travel opportunity to cover the inaugural Africa Wildlife Economy Summit in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in June 2019. The breathtaking Victoria Falls was a highlight for me because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but more importantly, the summit gave me invaluable exposure. Since then, whenever I report on this beat, I do so with great conviction because I now understand the different approaches and motivations behind wildlife conservation. This programme has also continued to bring me up to speed with happenings on the conservation front. It does so through occasional virtual meetings with some leading experts around the continent. There has been a deliberate mechanism to engage all journalists under the programme. Additionally, our stories get republished on The Independent website in the United Kingdom to be read by a broader international audience.

Which is your favourite story that you’ve done? Why?

In August 2015, following my visit to Ngamba Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, I wrote a story about the rescued chimpanzees—most of whom were rescued from wildlife traffickers. The story remains my favourite because it earned me a prize in the environmental features category during the 2016 Uganda National Journalism Awards organised by the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME).

What advice would you give to an aspiring environmental journalist?

Read, read and read. Read more about your subject of interest. It sounds cliché, but it is not. Environmental journalism is highly technical and scientific. It sometimes involves reading and interpreting scientific research, so you must be up to the task. Reading enables you to keep abreast of the issues, but it also helps you improve your writing and reporting skills. Re-read your published work and find ways you can write better next time. Read your peers’ work, too, because you can learn much from them. One more piece of advice: If you don’t like reporting from the field and are fearful of inconveniences, this beat might be a bit tough for you. This speciality requires one to come to terms with confronting rugged terrain and trying to understand that sometimes you will encounter challenges. That brings me to my last piece of advice: Always keep alert and stay safe whenever you are in the field.