Sierra Leone News: Students Call for Robust Legislation to Protect Environment
By Stephen V. Lansana
Students of three member schools of the Sierra Leone School Green Club (SLSGC), the Princes of Wales Secondary School, Peninsular Secondary School and Huntingdon Secondary School have on Friday October 17, 2019, called on the government of Sierra Leone to create robust environmental laws to prevent the country from climate change and global warming.
They made this call after the EU Delegation to Sierra Leone with the partnership of Society For Climate Change Communication and Sierra Leone School Green Club (SLSGC) organised a two-week climate diplomacy week from September 24 to October 6, 2019 with the theme: “The role of youth in building a sustainable society.
During this week, SLSGC partnered with EU to organize schools in developing artwork on the causes of climate change in Sierra Leone, its impact and the possible solutions. Ten schools were randomly selected in the Western Area — five from Urban and five from Rural. Some of the schools selected in both areas include: Peninsular Secondary School, Hundingdon Secondary School, Kelly Secondary School, Milford Secondary School etc; those from the Western Urban include Princes of Wales (POW), Grammar School, St Joseph School for Girls known as Convent, among others.
The three schools that were selected among the 10 that presented the best artwork on climate change and its effects are Peninsular Secondary school, Princes of Wales and Huntingdon Secondary School. The students presented their artwork during the EU Climate Diplomacy Week 2019. But to climax the Diplomacy Week, the EU Ambassador and other EU Staff and its partners including the students, focal teachers, and members of the Sierra Leone School Green Club had a discussion match at the top of Leicester Peak. The purpose of this match was for the students to see firsthand the negative effects of destroying the environment.
A Student of Peninsular Secondary School, Augustine B. Alieu said that one of the reasons responsible for the destruction of our environment is the lack of strong environmental laws, adding that the institutions responsible for the protection of the environment are doing very little to persevere the green house in the country.
Observing the mudslide area from the top of Leicester Peak, he said, “Looking at that area, a poor man does not have the resources to build at Motormeh. Those whose houses were destroyed might be very rich and influential in this country which might have prevented the stakeholders from stopping them to build in that area,” he said. “But if the government develop a policy and enforce it to it fullest, then people will be afraid of tampering with the environment.”
The Programme Manager of the Sierra Leone School Green Club, Daniel Conteh said, “All of us have seen the negative impact of climate change in the country. We have directly seen the mudslides, flooding of recent times and we have seen the agricultural sector been affected greatly.”
“According to scientists and experts, Sierra Leone is the third most vulnerable country in the World. So, the European Union wants to engage youths in relation to what that Swedish girl did in galvanizing global support for youths to come out demanding government and relevant stakeholders to take action on climate change because the future of these youths is blink as a results of these climate change and global warming,” he said. He added that the government needs to step up.
Speaking on the sustainability of the campaign on Climate Change and Global Warming, he said that they have organized Green Club in schools, and they are advocating for government through the Ministry of Basic Education to include climate change into the school curriculum. “Climate change is no longer a myth, it is real,” he said. “The time for talking is over, the time of action is now,” he said.
“Therefore, let us take action and reverse the climate change,” he pleaded.
He said that he has some reservations on the political will because government has signed the Paris Agreement, but it sometimes takes coldshoulder. “We are demanding more actions from them if not robust action. The legislations are not effective and that has been causing the problems. So, we want more robust actions from the policymakers and from the laws.”
Speaking on the artwork that the schools presented, he said that Peninsular Secondary School did extremely well because its artwork was showing a two-way street: one leading to global warming being caused by human activities like pollution, deforestation etc, and the other line was showing a down trend: going renewable and afforestation. The POW presented artwork on the cutting down of trees and the burning of charcoal including vehicles that are emitting carbon monoxide into the air. They also presented artwork on people in hospitals suffering from lung cancer. They also presented solutions to the problem.
Huntingdon Secondary School captured what happened in their environment the government used their school compound as a depository for logs.
The Head of EU Delegation, Ambassador Tom Vens was really impressed with the artworks, and the knowledge students have on climate change.
He said that was why he partnered with them so that he will gain more knowledge. He said, “I think it was a very valid point made here that a lot of things that we see are as a result of poverty. “I have got the idea that we have to focus on creating job opportunity in the rural areas.”
He called on the youths to learn how to plant trees, adding that the youths should be an advocate of climate change to their families, communities and the country as a whole.
