By George Ozalla
To mark this year’s world environment day celebration, the Honorable Minister of Environment; Alhaji Balarabe Abbas Lawal, Honorable Minister of State, Environment; Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, Permanent Secretary: Ministry of Environment, Alhaji Mahmud Kambari, Mr Zissimos Vergos: Deputy Head of Delegation, European Union and other stakeholders have collectively called for more actions to combat climate change issues such as desertification, land degradation, drought and other different types of environmental pollution as the world celebrates environment day every 5th of June.
During the commemorative event which held in Abuja Wednesday with this year’s theme: Land Restoration, Desertification And Drought Resilience” while the slogan is “Our Land, Our Future, We Are Generation Restoration”.
Hon. Minister of Environment Alhaji Lawal used the occasion to enjoin everyone to take environmental issues seriously because it is all about our lives and preservation of it with both our individual and collective conducts.
Earlier in his speech, the Honorable Minister stated that despite challenges, Nigeria is making significant progress in addressing land degradation and desertification through initiatives such as the Great Green Wall Project (GGW), Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEW MAP) and Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscape (AC Resal). Measures have been implemented through this programmes and projects to restore degraded landscapes, promote sustainable land management practices and enhance the resilience of communities to drought and desertification.
We have strengthened partnerships with local communities, civil society organisations, and international partners to mobilize resources and expertise towards reviving our lands, ecosystem and the environment in general.
In his own speech, the Honorable Minister of State of Environment: Dr Salako stated that; “as we mark this year’s edition of world environment day. I call on the nations of the Global North to shake off the current apathy around their commitment to deliver at least 20 billion USD annually in international biodiversity finance to developing countries by 2025 and 30 billion USD by 2030”.
Various goodwill messages were delivered by Representatives of OXFAM, NNPC Foundation, The European Union, CSO’s amongst others.
Others who spoke during the event lent their various individual voices on the importance of achieving greater climate change actions by all in order to save our environment from desertification, drought, land degradation and other types of pollutions- calling on all to imbibe the culture of tree planting to checkmate desertification and restore our lands.
Highlights of the colorful event included dance and entertainment, group photographs, quiz competitions by schools, colorful placards’ display depicting various messages by Young Climate Change Ambassadors, the event was later rounded off with historic tree planting exercise at the Junior Secondary School Model Maitama District, Abuja by the Honorable Minister of Environment and others who participated in the tree planting exercise to commemorate the event.
World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 5 to raise public awareness and encourage collective productive actions to protect and preserve the environment bearing in mind that without good ecosystem, there will be no economy and invariably no life!
