Though man is dependent on the physical environment for his survival. They have however failed to tame it controllable. Man’s desire to satisfy his needs have led to increased human use of the soil. Human negligence in addition to collective actions for economic gains has put the environment at disadvantage. Many of the natural ecosystems have been interfered with. This has been through encroachment on forest reserves, degradation of wetlands, uncontrollable expansion of agricultural land leading to soil erosion and soil exhaustion, overgrazing and burning of grasslands leading to bear soils that are susceptible to erosion agents. Indiscriminate disposal of solid waste in dumpsites located within urban areas has proved to be a problem to nearby residents in most developing cities of the world, Freetown is no exception. Open dumps have environmental safeguards; they can pose major public health threats and environmental effects in urban cities.

Open dumpsite approach as solid waste disposal method is a primitive stage of solid waste management in many parts of the world. It is one of the most poorly rendered services by municipal authorities in developing countries as the systems applied are unscientific, outdated and inefficient. Solid waste disposal sites are found both within and on the outskirts of developing urban cities. With increase in the global population and the rising demand for food and other essentials, there has been a rise in the amount of waste being generated daily by each household. This waste is ultimately thrown into municipal disposal sites and due to poor and ineffective management, the dumpsites turn to sources of environmental and health hazards to people living in the vicinity of such dumps. One of the main aspects of concern is the pollution caused to the earth—be it land, air and water. Many cities in developing countries face serious environmental degradation and health risks due to the weakly developed municipal solid waste management system.

In the Eastern Region and parts of North-Western Areas of Sierra Leone, undesirable land use patterns such as poor agricultural land use systems lead to land degradation. Burning is done to clear the fields for farming that destroy the flora and fauna. Moreover, deforestation is as well practised in these areas causing environmental degradation that remove the protective covers of the soil through mining, construction, agriculture, sawmill, logging, overgrazing, and burning that destroys vast range of forest land. All this leads to soil erosion, land salination and loss of nutrients from the soil.

High population pressure has also led to wide exploitation of the forest cover. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, Sierra Leone’s Gola tropical high forests covered 3,090,000 ha or 12% of the country’s area. Over the years, the forests have been gradually cleared for settlements and food production and today’s estimates indicate a reduction of about 730,000 hectares (ha) which is only 3% of the country’s area (Gola Rainforest Conservation Report 2017. p.3 Accessed: 24/08/2019). Burning is a bad habit that is used by pastoralists to burn old grass during the dry season so that fresh grass can sprout during the rainy season which destroy vegetation up to 10 km radius. All these are poor environmental management practices done in hilly forest areas of Tunkia Chiefdom, Nomo Chiefdom, Gaura Chiefdom, Malema Chiefdom, Koya Chiefdom and other communities along the Gola Rainforest in the South-East of Sierra Leone. In the same vein, timber extraction for commercial purposes is one of the major causes of forest degradation. It results into various hectares of tree cover exposing the soil to agents of erosion such as water and wind.

Though community stakeholders has the ability to make the environment sustainable and to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, environmental degradation has continued to worsen, exacerbating further poverty and food insecurity over the past two decades because common mistake for environmental advocates are making is the act of merely citing the ever growing number of transnational environmental concerns without specifically and logically defining those threats within a larger context.

It is for this reason that communities must adopt a pragmatic approach in managing the degraded environment because the destruction of the environment is a threat to human survival.