Silently, I watch ‘Iya akara’, a recent
widow with two small children scoop some spoons of ground beans into the
bubbling oil while arranging more chunks of wood to burn under the tripod
stand. I am vexed because this woman is contributing to environmental
degradation, yet again, I feel pity for her; this poor woman who fries akara to
fend for her children
And I ask myself, within myself, the solemn question- what is responsible for environmental degradation in Nigeria
To properly guide us through this engaging
discourse, I will define the words ‘environment’ and ‘environmental degradation’.
Environment has been defined by the Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary as
conditions or circumstances affecting people’s lives. It has further been
defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica to mean a complex of physical, chemical
and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and
ultimately determines its form of survival.
The term ‘environmental degradation’ is the
deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air,
water and soil, the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife.
Environmental degradation is a process through which the natural environment is
compromised in some way reducing biological diversity and the general health of
the environment. The process of environmental degradation can be entirely
natural or accelerated by human activities.
Nigeria, like many developing nations of
the world is faced head-on by the problem of environmental degradation. The
problem of environmental degradation is in fact a more serious one than it
appears since there is only one planet earth and as soon as it becomes
irreparably compromised, it could signal the end of human existence. So the
question on everyone’s mind remains ‘If environmental degradation is this
serious a problem, why do people not stop activities that accelerate it, and
instead adopt sustainability measures?’ this is the question I will answer
within the course of this debate
Environmental degradation can happen in a
number of ways; in one instance, air, water and soil resources become depleted
through overuse. It could also result from pollution of the environment, where
toxic substances render a normally safe environment, unsafe and unhealthy. This
pollution could result from vehicle emissions, reckless sewage disposal,
accidental runoff, agricultural chemical release from factories, burning of
fossils, thermal power stations. These directly contribute to the popularised
global warming. If we can also rightly recall, the ‘acid rain’ which was
projected in 2010 in the country was an offshoot of environmental degradation,
where sulphur oxide, carbon monoxide and nitro oxide were competing with oxygen
in the atmosphere. These gases however were released into the air by Nigerians,
through fossil burning, emissions from generators, vehicles and the negative
returns stay with us. Is it poverty or conflict?
My debate on this topic is people-related,
hence I will be using a number of practical illustrations to drive home my
points. Iya akara, whom I introduced in my introduction, is a young widow on
western Nigeria who has two small kids to fend for. Her husband died of a
chronic case of malaria, since he had no access to the medicine he needed to
cure him- they were way too costly. Iya akara resorted to frying akara for a
living soon after her husband died in order to take care of her children. Iya
akara’s fears of tomorrow are heightened because she has just enough money for
two meals a day for her and her children. So, tell me, will this woman listen
to anything anyone has to tell her about her burning of wood contributing to
environmental degradation. Won’t she tag any such person as an ‘enemy of progress’?
Iya akara is only an innocent but poor woman who is trying to make ends meet.
Her only crime is that she is poor, and there are so many like her, whose
poverty will keep causing environmental degradation in the country.
Mr Hassan is a small scale farmer in Northern
Nigeria who has encountered a lot of obstacles while trying to acquire land to
enlarge his small scale farming to something on a medium scale. With little
money to acquire more land, Mr Hassan has applied for subsidies to enable him
purchase, however there is no such thing forthcoming from the government.
Hence, Mr Hassan has to keep farming on the same piece of land, year in year
out. So tell me, will Mr Hassan listen to anyone who comes to him preaching
‘shifting cultivation’ as a panacea to environmental degradation when he has to
survive and there is no money to acquire more expanse of land. Soon, the
resources in that piece of land are depleted.
Okolie is a fresh school leaver in eastern
Nigeria who is among the unemployed populace. While trying to make ends meet,
luck smiles upon him when a friend approaches him to tell him of something that
will put food on his table- sawing down trees for carpenters in the area.
Despite the fact that the government has marked certain areas restricted from
deforestation, Okolie takes the risk of taking the job, and soon the trees are
falling again, and degrading the environment, Okolie’s own environment, but he
doesn’t care as long as he can get to eat something. Okolie ambition isn’t to
get rich, it is to stay alive.
And
so, poverty wins- again. Poverty has remained, is and will continue to remain
the prime cause of environmental degradation in Nigeria. People are desperate
to put food on their tables, and the system doesn’t make it any easier, so
people keep killing their environment and themselves everyday in order to
survive- The irony of it all.
The solution to environmental degradation
starts with an answer to the begging question of poverty. The government should
implement schemes that would alleviate poverty while intimating these folks on
the importance of preserving their environment. Nobody gives two hoots about
preserving their environments when they’re hungry. Environmental degradation
will continue to increase at breakneck pace until the problem of poverty is
solved.
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