In line with commemorating the World Environment Day on the 5Th of June, the Organization for Gender, Civic Engagement and Youth Development, OGCEYOD alongside GLOFEED and ASYOUSED, organized a nine-day sensitization campaign on the dangers of Climate Change based on the theme for WED 2009, Your Planet Needs YOU: Unite to Combat Climate Change. The activities which ran from the 27th of May to the 5th of June, focused on enlightening members of women and youth religious groups in Limbe, Cameroon, on the causes of Climate Change which range from Man’s activities such as burning of plastics, poor waste disposal methods, deforestation which has led to the accumulation of Greenhouse gases like, Carbon dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, Water Vapor etc in the atmosphere to natural and climatic processes which have greatly influenced Climate Change.
According to the facilitators, all of these stem from the fact that man’s quest for resources is always increasing as a result of an upsurge in the world’s population. They went on to highlight some evidences of climate change which are the very hot dry season, small streams which were existing a decade ago are dried up, just to name a few. The effects which are already evident are the increase in the malaria parasite and skin diseases. They then gave examples of the various means of combating Climate Change such as proper disposal of waste, afforestation as well as family planning. The participants were also encouraged to always keep themselves informed on environmental issues in text books, Newspapers, radio and Television especially National geographic channel etc.
It is worth mentioning that the participants of the Central Mosque Nº 1 made contributions like most rivers in the villages in the Northern parts of Cameroon are drying up. They mentioned that these rivers were flowing when they were young but have dried up. Imam Pekassa INOUSSA also raised the point that the planting of trees should be monitored because trees like the Eucalyptus when planted by river banks also suck up the water. He also added that this tree sucks up 30 litres of water per day so its
planting should not be encouraged by river banks. Mr. Uba Muhammed further pointed out that they have also noticed variance in day and night. He said that their praying times have changed for some time now. They usually pray at 6pm in the evening when night is approaching but now they have shifted praying time to about 7pm and he wondered if this was an effect of Climate Change.
The Christian Women Fellowship of Presbyterian Church Down beach also brought to light the burning of rubber by women to light the wood to prepare meals and they equally pointed out that it was really wrong. The Dorcas sisters of the Baptist Church also made that same observation and proposed that Government should take the companies in charge of cleaning the streets and picking up refuse from people’s houses to the small communities because they don’t have proper waste disposal methods.
Most of these groups encouraged tree planting exercises by all and the resource persons encouraged groups to make a commitment to plant these trees.
Imam Musa Bala of the Central Mosque Nº 1 said that Allah in his teaching has always fought for the protection of the environment and it is their duty to do the same. Imam Ibrahim also added that in their religion for example a Muslim should plant a tree even if he/she doesn’t benefit from the fruits there of but all the blessing goes to him/her when others consume from that tree. Mr. Agbor Hanson asked the organizers of the sensitization program to caution HYSACAM (waste disposal company) on their waste disposal methods and said that if scientist could come out with a chemical that could hasten the growth of trees but has no effect on the soil or the environment, it will be good for reforestation. He also said that the Government of Cameroon should enforce policies on deforestation and also sensitize the fishermen in Mamfe to stop fishing with chemicals.
The Catholic women fellowship on their part asked the facilitators to advise them on the kind of trees they should plant in their farms and near their houses since the planting of the eucalyptus sucks all the water present around the area where it is planted. and were being advised to go for the planting of trees that will bear fruits they like best like mango, pear, orange, etc. In should be noted that as part of activities to mark the event a radio program was organized by the EDEN radio Limbe, with Mr. Elvis Wepngong as guest speaker. The radio talk focused on the role of women in combating Climate Change.
In all 12 church groups with over 900 participants were sensitized. Africa,
No comments:
Post a Comment