By Gospel Akano
The time is now to take responsibility towards ensuring we conserve and sustain our planet and nature altogether. This should no longer be an option or a paper talk but a matter of necessity in action.
Have you noticed how blessed our planet is? Nature has provided us with good soil, safe temperature, suitable climate, animals, bodies of water and a variety of greeneries. All of these have complementarily made this planet a suitable and habitable place for us all.
However, we are consciously or unconsciously being ungrateful by depleting the resources nature has blessed us with. Consequently, human actions are mostly directly or indirectly responsible for many natural disasters.
Some people might say,” I DO NOT poach animals, cut down trees, dump refuse in waterways, defecate in water bodies, burn bushes, use smoky cars or generators.
Yours sincerely, thumbs up to you!
Thank you for your nature-friendly action of protecting the planet and its vast resources.
However, are you aware that there are some other people that may be near or far away from you that act other wise? The ripples of their negative actions invariably impact not just them alone but also every other person around as we are all connected in being part of nature.
Therefore, the onus lies on everybody and I mean everybody to stop perpetrating anti-nature activities and take on the cause of taking care of nature.
We however must come to the knowledge that our lackadaisical attitude towards preservation of nature has brought on several of the eco-related challenges we are facing today. So, if we do not want to experience the worst of these problems, now is the time for the right nature actions.
NOW, WHAT PRACTICAL ACTIONS CAN WE TAKE?
First off, we are tired of paper talk about nature and planet actions. If we had implemented all the recommendations from the many conferences and summits on sustainable development, climate change and conservation, I believe the planet might have fared differently than what obtains today.
Therefore, this essay is not another paper talk, but an action driven publication.
Hence, governments, NGOs, civil societies, security personnel, philanthropists, stake holders involved, and individuals must protect nature and stop anti-nature actions.
We must plant more trees, flowers and shrubs around us and afforest our forests.
Also, government and involved stakeholders should provide feasible and practicable measures that would discourage indiscriminate use of nature by people whose livelihood depends on them.
For example, we must promote laws that will protect vulnerable and endangered species of both flora and fauna in their natural habitat.
Furthermore, we must conserve water bodies without dumping refuse in them and not killing fish with industrial chemicals.
In addition, everybody should kindly embrace recycling of plastics if we cannot avoid using it. This helps our planet and nature, rather than burning, littering the environment, or dumping it in waterways.
Now as a reminder, in Nigeria, governments and oil companies involved in Ogoni Land clearance and resuscitation should make it a topmost priority. Imagine, everything called nature there: water bodies, water plants and animals, the land itself: land plants and animals are now poisoned by oil spillage, which contains carcinogens.
Agriculture can no longer thrive there, their popular business, which is fishing is now challenged and even the people themselves now find it difficult to get water that is safe to drink and use. It is high time governments and all stakeholders involved urgently clean the land.
Now to the legal frameworks about nature. What is the essence of a law without enforcement? It is like a toothless and clawless tiger. The point is that any perpetrator of anti-nature action should be brought to book irrespective of status or anything. This will serve as a deterrent to others.
Also, the media and entertainment industry should be encouraged to promote nature-friendly contents.
In conclusion, the best time to be part of the cause for a sustainable future for our planet was 50 years ago , but, its never too late to make a change now. Long live our dear planet Earth and Nature
Akano, Gospel Oladotun is a multi talented youth and student of Obafemi Awolowo University. He is passionate about making positive impacts, offering great values and solutions to problems leveraging on his writing prowess and versatility.
