22 Jul 2013

The district environmental coordinator for Francistown and North East District, Mr Thaloganyo Busang has implored stakeholders in environmental issues to act together to transit into green economy for green growth to be realised.

Mr Busang was speaking at North East regional environmental education fair. He noted that the country’s approach through the Department of Environmental Affairs was to ensure that green economy was developed and supported by practical and implementable action plans that recognised the importance of building on existing best practices, programmes, initiatives and indigenous knowledge in key sectors such as education.

He said government alone could not manage and implement the green economy initiatives and said private sector and civil society must play a fundamental role in the endeavour.

He further said the transition to a sustainable green economy implied the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth.

“This is an economy characterised by substantially increased investment in green sectors, supported by enabling legislation and policy reforms such as the Environmental Assessment Act of 2011 and the Community Based Natural Resources Management Policy,” he said.

Mr Busang explained that though the standard economic indicators revealed that the economy was relatively stable, there were still concerns from ecological sustainability perspective.

He explained that some of the concerns were that the economy was highly energy-intensive, the impact of climate change on indigenous species and ecosystems, widespread poverty and unemployment and severe pressure on natural resource base due to impact of introduction and spread of invasive alien species.

Mr Busang said the concerns required a collective intervention from both role-players to find sustainable solutions.

Earlier, the chairperson of North East Regional Environmental Education committee, Mr Mbatshi Malibamba said the objective of the fair was to revive environmental education clubs at primary, secondary and tertiary levels and prepare for an upcoming national fair.

Mr Malibamba said teachers and parents have a responsibility to nature children’s talents in sustaining mother earth because once the earth is in danger it means everybody is in danger.

He explained that projects that are showcased at the fair were a beef up on academic work because the syllabus has a number of objectives on environmental issues.

Mr Malibamba said his committee plans at involving preschools and private schools in the fair next year because everybody has a responsibility to care for the environment. ENDS