Nigeria Daily News: Academics urge shared roles to protect the environment

Academics urge shared roles to protect the environment
================================================================================
Staff on 22/07/2012 21:00:00


MEMBERS of the academic community who gathered at the Lagos State University
(LASU), Ojo at the weekend, have advocated shared roles between the government
at all levels and the people to tackle environmental problems facing them.
At a lecture with the theme: “Thinking beyond Rio+ 20: The politics of
environmental change and sustainability in an urbanising world,” organised by
the institution’s Faculty of Social Sciences, the speakers asserted that only
a working partnership between the government and the people could save the
environment from further problems.
The guest speaker and a professor of Development Geography at the Royal
Holloway, University of London, David Simon, stressed the importance of a strong
bond between the government and the citizens in preserving the environment
through proper planning.
Simon said conscious efforts needed to be made by the government and the
governed to protect the environment from the danger a rise in sea water level
could pose to humanity. “We need sustained environmental responsibilities
while we upscale our environmental activities even at individual levels,” he
said.
The don also urged African countries, which share same coastal lines, to take
proactive measures at preventing the environment “because the way we think has
to change if we are to cope with climate change.”
Simon, who was a consultant to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme
(UN-HABITAT), noted that if there was a metre rise in sea water level, which is
still below the prediction of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), some parts of Lagos, such as Badagry freeway, Victoria Island and
Ajegunle, would be highly devastated.
He said the fact that Nigeria does not have a real recycling facility for
plastic waste from water bottle, sachet and polythene, also had a negative
effect on the environment as they block drainage channels.
To Prof. Princewill Alozie of Philosophy Department, little had been achieved
through several environmental policies because “our governments are
neo-colonial.” He said the multinational companies had pocketed most
governments and this made planning impossible in the country.
Alozie lamented that even media and religious organisations had been hijacked,
hence “there is a need to address the capitalist hold on environments of
developing world.”
He also advocated intense public enlightenment on the environment among the
citizens so that they would know the implication of environmental pollution.
Prof. Kayode Ojo of the Department of Geography and Planning Science said it was
not enough to have urban and regional planning rules, the implementation and
monitoring were critical.