By: greenhabitatng

greenhabitatng — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 06:37:35 +0000

Dear Nasiru Lawal,
Thank you very much for following up and reading our blog. Your insight to the problem is apt. It is just what we need, realistic views and solutions to our peculiar problems. From my experience of living and noticing what is going on in Nigeria, I would say the integrative approach is not fully utilized. We (problem solvers) often times do not acknowledge some of the problems that exist. Instead, the focus is just on solving the aspect of the problem we want to solve and in the way we want to address it, not the right way. There is a bit of obsession with just doing for doing sake and not doing very well to eradicate the problem. At Green Habitat, we are striving to do a very good job in our quests.
Please keep sharing your views, perhaps some may see the ideas you are sharing and pick it up as some thing to do.
Thank you.

Sadiq Gulma.

By: Nasiru Lawal

Nasiru Lawal — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 20:39:36 +0000

Impressed by the way young generations are taking up the environmental challenge. I must say this is a remarkable achievement Sir Gulma. My take and contribution though very late is that, if we must achieve sustainable environmental awareness or campaign, we must employ the ” INTEGRATED APPROACH”. As regions, areas and places have peculiar characteristics and so they have peculiar environmental problems/challenges. It is very important that we understand the human-spatial relationships that exist in that environment and their underlining factors that leads to unsustainable use of that space in question. By integrated approach, I mean religion, locations, commercial activities and culture of the people of that environment. I could remember visiting some villages around Mountain Elgon National Park in Uganda, where residents of that area were restricted from using the forest for fire wood. But these people were not completely denied access to other forest services such as: using the bamboo shuts, each woman is allowed to get dry wood from the forest and so many services which are at the regenerative potential of the forest. The most interesting part is that these forest users, (women mostly) were given alternative to forest services. Government in collaboration with certain NGO’s provided Micro loans to these women and trained them on how to use such loans in establishing them selves, some were given sheeps/cattle to rear not for beef or dairy but for their excrete as it serves as a major input in Biomass technology which is an alternative to fire wood. There are many of such initiatives where you can only achieve sustainable environment if you provide environmental users with an alternative and bring them on board in your quest as stakeholders. This happens also when indigenous people of Mount Elgon were employed as officers and staffs of that forest reserve. On religion, we have imams and pastors who knows very well what their religion says about using resources of the environment in an unsustainable way(things like:waste, extravagance). There, they can come up with programs that will help reduce waste at least to environment’s carrying capacity. I hope this will help. Thank you for your tireless efforts in making the sustainable development dreams come true..
Nasiru Lawal
Bsc. Geography
Msc. Environmental Science.

Comments on: What We Learned from Attending the Environmental Roundtable Discussion for Africa

By: greenhabitatng

By: Nasiru Lawal