This year’s World Environment Day (WED) presented another opportunity for stakeholders and environmentalists to set new agenda for a sustainable and liveable world. At the WED celebration in Lagos, the government, civil societies and students, among others, spoke with one voice in support of the environment, MUYIWA LUCAS reports.
Any harm done to the environment is harm done to humanity.”
This is a saying credited to Pope Francis in the global environmental circle. It has since become a cliche for awakening the consciousness of man on the urgent need to protect the environment believed to be more endangered with the increasing threat of climate change.
It was, therefore, not surprising when top government functionaries, including environmentalists, non-governmental organisations, students and other stakeholders converged on the Kanu Ndubuisi Park, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, on Monday, to celebrate this year’s World Environment Day (WED).
The theme was: “Connecting people to Nature.”
The President, Waste Management Society of Nigeria (WAMASON), Professor Oladele Osibanjo, in a lecture delivered at the event, noted that since its debut in 1973, WED has become the United Nations’ standard vehicle for motivating worldwide appreciation and plan for the protection of man’s common heritage – the environment.
“What we are celebrating today started worldwide in 1973, arising from the decision of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972. It has been a flagship campaign for raising awareness on emerging environmental issues such as marine pollution and global warming, tsunami of electronic waste dumping in developing countries, healthy consumption, wildlife crime and other environmental crimes,” he explained, adding that it had grown to become a global platform for public outreach.
In a similar vein, Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment Dr. Babatunde Adejare said this year’s theme impelled Nigerians and other lovers of the environment to get outdoors and into nature; appreciate its beauty and importance, and, consequently, take forward the call to protect the Earth.
“This theme invites us as stakeholders in the environment to think about how we are part of nature and how intimately we depend on it. It challenges us to find fun and exciting ways of experiencing, cherishing and sustaining this vital relationship with nature,” he observed, adding that most importantly, stakeholders must be sincere enough to increase awareness among the public on the importance of the country’s natural endowments.
Adejare further noted that scientific advances and growing environmental challenges, such as global warming and wetlands encroachment, are helping to understand the countless ways in which natural systems support human prosperity and well-being.
Therefore, he contended, there is the need to improve on the environment and for mankind to start taking responsibility for his behaviour and its impact on the environment. This, he said, is why the current administration in the state stimulates the appreciation of nature through the establishment and maintenance of gardens and parks as well as beautification of loops, open spaces and roundabouts across the state.
He further said the commitment of the state to sustainable management of its environment was being demonstrated through various laudable plans and programmes such as the “Cleaner Lagos Initiative”, which encapsulates the ongoing broad reforms in the solid waste management sector; the annual Tree Planting Day through which over seven million trees of various species have been planted to enrich the state’s biodiversity; the identification/tagging and enumeration of trees in the Lagos metropolis; the identification and protection of wetlands and the 10-year framework of programmes for sustainable consumption and production patterns, among others.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of the Environment, Mr. Adeyemi Saliu, buttressed Adejare’s submissions. He explained that the Cleaner Lagos Initiative was embedded in many components. He listed some of them to include, but not limited to, residential waste collection and processing; commercial and industrial waste collection; primary, secondary and tertiary all-year-round drainage maintenance; manual and mechanised street sweeping; provision of engineered sanitary landfills; transfer loading stations and material recovery facilities among others. These efforts, he explained, have come to redefine environmental management in Lagos State.
Saliu noted benefits inherent to include attainment of clean and hygienic state; sanitary disposal of hazardous waste; deployment of modernised equipment such as 600 brand new compactors and over 900,000 bins that will be electronically tracked; and the creation of over 30,000 direct and indirect jobs, plus the employment of 27,500 community sanitation workers to sweep inner streets in all the 377 wards of the state, in addition to the mechanised sweeping of highways.
An environmentalist and member of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, Mr. Desmond Majekodunmi, said WED was “a celebration of mother nature”. He expressed happiness that children were being introduced to the need for sustainable environment.
“If we do not take care of our environment, it will come back to haunt us,” Majekodunmi said.
Reasons for WED
Osibanjo, a professor of Analytical & Environmental Chemistry, in his lecture, disclosed that WED’s annual celebration aimed at successfully attaining carbon neutrality in the atmosphere by focusing on forest management; reduce greenhouse effects; promote bio-fuels production by planting on degraded lands; use of hydro-power to enhance electricity production; encourage the public to use solar water heaters; produce energy through solar sources; developing new drainage systems; promoting coral reefs and mangroves restoration to prevent flooding and erosion, including other ways of environmental preservation.
Ecosystem
The Ecosystem, according to the professor, is the sum total of interacting living organisms and the non-living environment in an area e.g. forests, grasslands, rivers, coastal and deep seas water, islands, mountains, even cities. It provides mankind with vast goods and services, otherwise known as “ecological services” (e.g. Forest Ecosystem) which are rarely appreciated by mankind because no monetary values have been placed on them.
He said values have now been assigned to the ecosystem. This explained why economists have now estimated annual values of some of these services to humans to help policy makers take them into action. It is only in recent years that economists have developed mechanisms for placing financial values on nature and natural /ecosystem services.
Osibanjo regreted that there was no Nigerian data to deploy in the computation of the quantum of contribution from nature’s resources toward prevailing recession in the country. He blamed this on man’s connection to nature, which is being exploited without caring to tend or nurture it in a sustainable way to enable it provide goods and services in the future.
Challenges
Osibanjo said factors affecting climate variability are a major concern for environmentalists and stakeholders as they constitute huge challenges for sustainable environment in the country. These factors include desertification, which he said is now migrating southward at about 0.5 kilometer per annum; multi-media pollution; flood disasters; erosion; poverty; climate change and global warming; environment induced social conflicts, like what is being experienced in the Niger Delta area of the country as a result of oil spillage; devastation of the ecosystems and recently herdsmen migration from the northern parts of the country whose grazing activities are destroying farmlands in the middle belt and southern states of the country.
Besides, are the associated risk of poor municipal solid waste management,including indiscriminate landfilling and open burning. He added that the uncontrolled emission of greenhouse gases (methane and carbon dioxide), into the atmosphere causes global warming, as well as dioxin and furan emissions.
Stakeholder at the event expressed concern that when industries declare billions of naira profits annually, they should be taken up on the toll the effect of their operations has taken on their host communities and environs. “How many workers or communities nearby fell sick arising from unclean air or water pollution from such industry’s activities? How realistic and effective is their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme? How many nature reserve parks or nature conservation projects are the company sponsoring or supporting etc?” Osibanjo submitted.
The Head, Sustainability and Corporate Brand, Lafarge Africa Plc, Mrs. Temitope Oguntokun, aptly captured the entire essence of the gathering with her parting shot. Drawing from the words of an environmental activist, Wendell Barry, she said: “the earth is all that we all have in common, so let us continue to protect it.”
And as this year’s WED challenged mankind, stakeholders are unanimous that there is a need to continue to find fun and exciting ways to cherish the vital relationship of man with nature.
