WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP THE ENVIRONMENT (A CALL FOR SYNERGY & INPUT TO ADDRESSING THE ISSUES AFFECTING THE MOTHER EARTH)

INTRODUCTION

The earth is faced with a myriad of issues troubling her. These issues where caused by man’s anthropogenic activities and its active desire to utilize the many benefits of the earth. Unfortunately, man’s desire led it to exploit the environment thereby degrading the natural benefits gotten from the earth. Arising from the massive exploitation that led to extinction of some natural benefits, the earth began having issues related to these effects. These issues include global warming, urban heat, improper waste generation and disposal, deforestation, congestion etc. These issues have plunged the world and will continue to plunge the world into diverse environmental issues that will affect the physical, social and economic and medical lifestyle of populace. 

Many organization have been on the forefront of addressing these issues by deploying various mechanisms ranging from sensitization, advocacy, support and project implementation in an aggressive bid to reduce the issues faced by the environment and also its effect on the populace. These organizations include global, national, state and at the grassroot level. Also, non-governmental organizations who are passionate about promoting the efficient usefulness of the environment. These organizations include the United Nations, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), European Union (EU), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as other continental bodies such as the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWASA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) amongst others. Non-governmental organizations such as Action Against Hunger, International Rescue Commission, World Food Program, MSF amongst several NGOS are making deliberate steps in their own engagements to reduce negative effects associated with the environment. Sadly, this has still not address the environment issues bedeviling the world holistically because most of these programs and interventions are people interventions which made the people the pivotal instrument in addressing these issues, hence the question, what are we doing to help the environment, to help our environment. 

Yearly children, adult, even the aged die due to malnutrition caused lack of food supplies which is as a result of loss of agricultural lands caused by erosion, flooding, wild fire etc. Our urban cities are in shambles due to congestion and overpopulation caused by the desire of populace to make earning and live comfortably thereby exerting negative activities such as fossil fuel burning, deforestation etc on the environment and even exerting pressure on public utilities leading to accidents, disasters and deaths. Our environments are constantly hot leading to spread of communicable diseases that affect our life span. Except we work together to be conscious of our environment, we will always continue to murder the mother earth which will in turn affect our existence on the earth. 

WHAT MUST I DOING TO HELP THE ENVIRONMENT

As said earlier, humans must take deliberate, conscious efforts to addressing the issues bedeviling the environment. Therefore, below are some of the activities that can be done in order to preserve the environment:

Drastic reduction of environmental unfriendly activities: Human must understand that the negative effect been felt today in our environment is as result of the activities we have undertaken. It can simply be referred to as “steps in the wrong direction”. Therefore, we should be deliberate in our daily engagement with the environment. These deliberate steps include proper waste generation, disposal and management, environmental consciousness such as reduction in falling down economic trees, bush burning, exploitation to extinction method of environmental benefits etc. Also, various governments, inter-governments, national and local organizations will support programmes, plans and policies that is geared towards the drastic reduction of the negative issues been experienced. By doing this, it will actively help to reduce the negative effects been experienced in the environment. 

Sensitization, advocacy and support: By this method, everyone especially at the grassroot needs to be aware about their actions and how it contributes to the deterioration of the environment. This method includes dialoging, focus group discussion and deploying specialized tools to checkmate the state of the environment. Specialized tools such as remote sensing technologies can be veritable in this respect. 

Conclusion 

Since the negative effects confronting the environment didn’t sprang up surprisingly overnight causing the level of dilapidation, depletion and destruction of human lives and surroundings, its moderation therefore cannot be seen as effective overnight, we must therefore, steadily, daily, apply deliberate steps in addressing the ills of the environment in order to create a sustainable environment that will be safe for us and for our children and that requires active participation from all and sundry.