By Martha Agas
A non governmental organization, Centre For Earth Works (CFEW) has called for more investments in green jobs, to help in preserving and restoring the environment from man-made harmful practices .
The Team Lead of the organisation, Mr Benson Fasanya, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Tuesday in Jos.
Fasanya explained that investing in green jobs was critical to protecting the environment from pollution and degradation, advising that government policies should be streamlined to encourage its adoption.
“Green jobs such as bee rearing, contributes to pollination in plants and provide honey. Also, we have waste management jobs such as recyclers, collectors and organic manure producers.”
He expressed concerns over the alarming rate at which humans were endangering the environment through pollution, deforestation, plastic waste and burning of fossils among others, adding that concerted efforts were required to end such.
He also stressed the need for government to promote the zero-waste concept to preserve the environment.
He explained that the concept often addressed the indiscriminate dumping or discharge of waste on land, water and air, which also threatened the environment or human health.
According to him, vulnerable groups and communities are worse hit by the impact of climate change, particularly through floods, erosion and the loss of their livelihood.
`Low-income communities and women farmers are usually the worse hit from climate change.”.
The CFEW official called for innovative approaches such as recycling and re-use of plastics in addressing the global plastic pandemic affecting the environment, and also urged government to support informal waste pickers to mitigate the impact of plastic waste dumping.
According to Fasanya, CFEW, in partnership with other organisations, recently organised a panel discussion to celebrate the World Earth Day, which was celebrated on April 22.
He said the discussion was aimed at enlightening the public on environmental issues such as; zero waste, plastic pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, as well as solutions to address the global concern. (NAN)
