20 Aug 2019

The North West Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) coordinator, Mr Jobe Manga has challenged residents of Sehithwa in the Ngami area to minimise practices that led to environmental degradation.

Mr Manga made the appeal at the beginning of a series of roadshows by DEA aimed to sensitise schools and villages in the Ngami area on care of the environment.

He noted that some practices degraded water sources and that those would in future affect farmers and fishermen who depended on sources such as Lake Ngami for survival.

He said that the sprouting of camel thorn or mogotlho trees around Lake Ngami were a sign of land degradation.

Mr Manga also challenged residents to adapt to changes brought about by climate changes such as the decrease in the amount of rainfall.

Communities, he said, should undertake projects that would cushion them against such effects and also be aligned to the President’s drive of moving away from a resource to a knowledge based economy.

He recommended such projects as producing animal feeds as a viable project.

Further, Mr Manga informed them about the National Environmental Fund, which he said was underutilised.

He said communities were advised to come up with businesses that focused on environmental conservation as well as livelihood projects to benefit from the fund.

The National Environmental Fund is a grant and small scale projects can be funded to the tune of P100 000 to P500 000, medium P500 000 to P1 million and large scale projects from P2 million to P5 million.

A resident, Mr Gaetime Bikitshane appealed to government to help communities with resources to harness natural resources such as mogotlho to produce fodder. ENDS