14 Nov 2022

Sustainable use of natural resources and the mitigation of the harmful effects of climate change are critical to sustainable economic development.

Delivering State of the Nation address today, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi said one of the country’s challenges in attaining a clean and safe environment was pollution such as indiscriminate dumping of waste and littering. 

However, he said towards the attainment of a safe environment, government was rolling out a biogas technology programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“A total of 231 bio-digesters have been built and commissioned in the southern part of the country in 2022, compared to 97 in 2021. 

The programme will be rolled out to other parts of the country in 2023,” he said.

To reduce carbon emissions in order to curb the effects of climate change, he said government, through the Integrated Resource Management Plan, was putting in place measures to deploy Green Energy Technologies to help with the attainment of a 30 per cent target of green energy contribution to total power generation by 2030.

He said the University of Botswana and the National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI) had collaborated on bio-fuel research to produce biodiesel from beef tallow and used cooking oil.

President Masisi said Botswana International University of Science and Technology was also undertaking projects including the development of a prototype for conversion of coal to liquid fuel and gasification of coal as a source of energy.

On sustainable management of natural resources, he said  government was taking human-wildlife conflict seriously and to address it government had employed various co-existence strategies through community-based Natural Resource  Management programmes.

He also said utilisation of natural resources such as mosukujane, sengaparile, firewood, phane and thatching grass contributed to the improvement of livelihoods. 

“However, I wish to call upon my fellow countrymen and women to be mindful that over harvesting such natural resources will lead to their depletion,” he said. BOPA