05 Feb 2019

Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Mr Kitso Mokaila, says issues of climate change and global warming must be given the seriousness they deserve.

Speaking at commemoration of the World Wetlands Day in Selebi Phikwe recently, Mr Mokaila said climate change impacted on the environment and human lives.

He said more education and sensitisation on climate change should be streamed down to Batswana from grassroots, all the way to tertiary education level.

He said the community needed to be sensitised on the issue so that all could understand how climate change impacted on their lives.

He said a solution to climate change was needed and to achieve such, people needed to change their attitude and preserve the environment.

Mr Mokaila said if development projects took place, environmental impact assessments should take place and a mitigation programme or plan put in place.

He stated that wetlands such as the Okavango Delta and Chobe River would be impacted upon and the communities that lived around the water sources would feel the impact.

He said SPEDU region housed dams and rivers as well as a lot of underground water sources.

Therefore, Mr Mokaila said these needed to be taken care of and when decisions on development issues were made, they should consider the impact such developments had on the wetlands.  

He said harvesting of sand in rivers was a major concern because it impacted on water sources such as rivers.

He said the government had put in place programmes to control and regulate harvesting of river sand and ways to mitigate the problem.  

“These are discussions Batswana should have and this is time for change,” he said adding that if people did not act now, the upcoming generation would suffer.

On other issues Minister Mokaila expressed concern at the rate in which second hand imported cars came in Botswana.

He said more than 40 000 vehicles were registered annually.

He said the emissions from vehicles combined with power generating plants impacted on the quality of air and environment, and ultimately on the climate.

He explained that emissions of greenhouse gases contributed to global warming and climate change.

He said Botswana should come up with ways to mitigate such problems though the level of emission produced in Botswana compared to other industrialized countries was very low.

During commemoration of this wetlands day, there was a panel discussion from experts in the field of global warming and climate change.

Panelists shared information on climate change and global warming.

They also indicated that measures should be put in place to mitigate the problem and cited educating Batswana more on the subject, including in the education curriculum at all levels.Ends