Nnimmo Bassey, executive director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), on Friday lamented the poor budgetary allocation by the Nigerian government in promoting and sustaining the ecosystem.
Bassey made the remarks at the World Earth Day ceremony in Benin City with the theme, “Invest in our planet.”
According to him, successive governments have paid little or no attention to the sustainability of our environment without knowing that our economy and survival depend on it.
“Government has not invested more in our environment. The government in Nigeria pays too little attention to our environment. The smallest budgetary allocation by the government has shown a careless attitude about what is going around them, that is, what build the health of the people, what builds the economy.
“Economy depends on what we have in our natural environment. Without a healthy planet, humans cannot survive, “he said.
Bassey opined that sustainability of the ecosystem is not only the responsibility of government but of all Nigerians through tree planting and avoiding things that will impact the environment negatively.
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“At our individual level, we can do things that will help to cool the planet, for example, plant a tree at least in your premises if you don’t have land, in your compound, plant a tree in a bucket, it still works very well.
“We should learn to buy more durable clothes. You don’t have to change the things you have every year. If your shirt is made of good material, you can use it for many years.
“It has been extremely destructive the way we deal with our environment. Investing in our planet has implication of investing in our youth, investing in maintaining our ecosystem, investing in our natural system because when you invest in the future, you are invariably investing in today and you are investing in the preservation of life.
“Right now, we are investing very little in our future because we are just busy transforming, consuming, and destroying everything,” he added.
Earlier, Babawale Obayanju, programme manager, Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN), in his presentation, titled, “What Future, Plastic or Fishes”, said over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year.
Obayanju added that half of the figure is used to create single-use items such as shopping bags, cups, and straws.
He also added that 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, and plastic makes up 80 percent of all marine debris found from surface water to deep-sea sediments.
He opined that by 2050, the amount of plastic in the ocean is expected to “outweigh the fish.”
