By Oweyegha-Afunaduula
The term complex may be defines as something which is organized in a difficult way, usually with components interlinked or interconnected in a way, which taxes the human mind thereby necessitating a superb mind to unravel and understand.
Indeed God, created complexity, not simplicity, in Nature and linked everything he created to everything in complex way. In other words, interconnectivity, interdependence and complexity are the natural phenomena. Dis-connectivity, independence and simplicity are unnatural phenomena.
In his wisdom, therefore, God created interlinkages different types of beings, some living and others nonliving, with pathways of energy, information, communication and materials, within a broad category called the Universe.
The Oxford University Advanced Dictionary defined Universe as “the whole of space , and everything in it, including the Earth, the planets, and the stars”. It defines Nature as “all the plants, animals, and things that exist in the universe, made by God, not humans. Humans are part and parcel of the animal world.
This article is putting it that everything in the Universe or Nature is not independent by interlinked or interconnected and interdependent to every other thing. The interlinkages, inter-connections and inter-dependence are achieved through energy, information, communication and materials cycling.
So, God created a complex Universe, complex Nature, complex natural energy systems, complex natural information systems, complex communication systems and complex materials cycling in certain stable patterns and order. He purposed that the systems are self-sustaining.
Until the onset of the scientific revolution in Europe, the complexity that God created persisted and was self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. With science came disconnections of natural systems, followed by their oversimplification, especially with the onset of the industrial revolution, again in Europe.
Oversimplification is geared towards overconsumption of resources (materials) and interfering with materials cycling. It is seen in simpler information and communication systems than those created by God to maintain and sustain the complex systems in the he universe and nature.
Oversimplification is seen, for example, in the conversion of plant formations of natural forests swamps into monocultures of plantations of plants desired by Man, Homo sapiens; destruction of wildlife and creation of zoos and animal orphanages instead.
Whole natural ecosystems have been destroyed and converted into simpler ones, or even replaced by simpler ones. This is, no doubt endangering or jeopardizing the future of humanity and other beings through disconnections and removals.
Busoga, for example, used to be a huge grazing and drinking land for wildlife in the 1930s. The area had many expansive swamps and forests. Elephants would travel long distances from Western Uganda to feed and drink in Busoga during the dry season.
As they moved they opened up heavy vegetation for other animals that followed them to feed: Buffaloes, Zebras, Eland, Bushbuck, giraffe and other smaller herbivores. Hippopotamus and Crocodile and a variety of fish species abounded in the swamps and lakes.
And then big game carnivores would also follow: Lion, Cheaters and Leopard and other meat-eating animals such as foxes, wild dogs, hyenas and jackals roamed the bio-culturral landscape, well-integrated in the energy systems. There were also pangolins, monitor lizards, pythons, and aardvarks anteaters).
And numerous species of birds occupied the aerial space, occasionally coming down to Earth to feed and sleep. Busoga was indeed the Haven of wildlife in the area that came to be called Uganda.
Today Busoga, except in small places where some buffalo are said to still exist, is nothing but people and man-made things. Even virtually all its waterfalls have been erased for electricity. Future generations will never know the real Busoga: the land of lakes, swamps, rivers, forests and a diversity of animals.
They will know only the oversimplified Busoga without forests, wild and waterfalls. If God had prepared any land in what came to be Uganda to be a place of booming tourism it is Busoga. Sadly, this now just a dream.
Tourism can best survive in a world of complexity, not simplicity. Busoga is now too oversimplified to offer any meaningful tourism. Only tourism within simplicity is possible, but that is not meaningful.
Simplicity cannot be an alternative to Complexity. With oversimplification of ecosystems, which has destroyed Nature in Busoga, Busoga will never be the cradle of wildlife in Uganda again.
For God and My Country
The Writer Is a Ugandan Scientist And Environmentalist.
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