A hardworking farmer works on his farm from morning till evening. Even in dry seasons, he finds ways and means to transport water over miles just for irrigation. Eventually, his farm begins to flourish. The carrots, so orange and bold. The potatoes, so strong and huge. He comes back on the harvest day in anticipation to go home with a full basket of produce only to come and meet an already harvested land and a destroyed farm. How? He waits days upon days expecting the culprit to return his produce or at least remake his farm for him but nobody shows up. How fair is this?
Well, if you said it’s unfair, then let me break the news to you that you and I are the “culprits”, the farm is our natural resources especially vegetation, and the farmer is the environment. Fortunately for us, the environment finds a way to regenerate and clean itself but we still find ways to destroy it. You remember that time you littered? dumped refuse in a bush?, cut trees from your compound to replace them with pavement blocks? That was you destroying the famer’s farm. How fair is this?
People see matters concerning the environment very abstract but it’s as simple as this, we want a healthy earth right? Just live right, environmentally.
I just remembered how bitter people have been complaining of heat which is kind of funny to me but let’s do some basic calculations. Plants are supposed to act as carbon sink for the carbon dioxide we exhale right? So as we’ve been cutting these carbon sinks, where else do we expect those gases to go?
In African countries, the number one thing that makes it hard to fight for environmental conservation is poverty. There’s nothing wrong in utilizing our resources after all that’s the whole point of having natural resources but then since the poverty rate is too high, we tend to be overdependent on these resources and over exploitation happens. You might be wondering okay , so what now?
That’s where education and sensitization is needed. People already know how much the environment means to all of us, they just sometimes choose not to care about how their actions affect the environment because after all they will die. Alright, but then don’t forget until you die, you’ll still be on this same earth and so will your generations.People need to be reminded countlessly how important the environment is to us and the fact that it’s the only home we have.They need to be educated on how to utilize these resources without compromising the needs of future generations.
So if it’s a tree you’re cutting, make sure you replant it and that’s all. There’s still a long journey ahead of us in combating environmental issues but collectively we can still reach our destination. You can just practice the The Three Rs; Reduce, Reuse, Recyle. Instead of buying A/C you could just plant a tree in your compound. Instead of dumping refuse into bushes and water bodies, you could send it to the appropriate refuse centers.
It’s really that simple. Don’t forget we have only one earth, once it is destroyed we’re equally doomed.
All Images are mine