ENVIRONMENTAL PARADIGM SHIFTby | 18-08-2014 13:44 |
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Growing up in Nigeria some two decades and a few years ago, I was never really concerned about environmental health or protecting nature for the sake of humanity. For all I cared, money, food and social relevance were the major areas of interest. Well, I was just like virtually every other person. We cared less about what pressures we were putting on the environment. Little wonder for a long period, Nigeria remained a country with a very little interest in eco-related issues, until the late 80's. The Koko Toxic Waste saga which claimed hundreds of innocent lives in Nigeria suddenly startled the country and woke the government from its long slumber of environmental non-challance. Within this time frame, Nigeria began to formulate policies and legislative frameworks towards prohibiting certain activities such as deforestation, water poisoning to get fishes, massive bush burning, movement/dumping of toxic wastes and some other hostile activities. In the same vein, environmental impact assessment policy was initiated as well as the creation of the national Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now referred to as National Environmental Standard and Regulations Agency (NESREA) with a view to sensitizing Nigerians about being eco-friendly, among other objectives. Now, more than twenty years from then, there appears to be a progressive shift in the mentality of Nigerians towards protecting the environment. Even though there is still a lot more to achieve, it can never be denied that many Nigerians are now fully aware of the negative effects of some activities on the environment. Consequently, it is not too surprising when one sees groups of people in neighborhoods or communities during weekends (mostly), engaging in one environmental sanitation activity or the other. Such activities include clearing of refuse sites, unblocking of drainage outlets and so on and so forth. Thus, I believe that this environmental paradigm shift among Nigerians is a beautiful development which should be further encouraged and actively passed to areas where people are yet to fully appreciate environmentalism. Incentives, enlightenment campaigns and pay-as-you-use policies are some methods the government could adopt to promote environmental care and protection in Nigeria. |
