*Dr. Nnimmo Bassey
Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Health of Mother Earth Foundation has dedicated the 2022 World Environment Day to the grassroots people whose lives and livelihoods have been gravely impacted by neo-colonial forces and extractives’ forces that mindlessly exploit and harm nature.
Director of HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, said the move was imperative as oil and gas impacted communities are communities who tackle the impacts of the multidimensional climate crisis facing disaster in their unsupported vulnerable state.
Bassey who explained the need to reflect on the fact that humams have a stewardship duty towards the earth and other beings on the planet, regretted that human actions have been largely predatory and with a general tendency to ignore their own well-being.
He said the theme of 2022 WED, Only One Earth, highlights the need to create transformative changes in “our policies and choices to live sustainably in harmony with nature with the full understanding that the planet is our only home and that her resources are finite.”
“Humans must wake up from the futile dream that the earth can be recklessly exploited without dire consequences. This year’s World Environment Day theme reminds us of the need to understand that the generous gifts of Nature must be handled with gratitude and care.”
Bassey who holds a National Honour of Member of Order of Federal Republic, MFR, for environmental activism, regretted that at a time when people should check the exploitation of natural ecosystems, and wasteful consumption, the world was rather investing in militarization, warfare and destruction.
“It is a good time to adopt Ecocide as an international crime as a means of ensuring accountability for heinous ecological crimes, including those that have inter-generational implications.
“We are living witnesses of the crimes committed in mining and oil fields as well as those committed in conflict zones. We must protect our biodiversity, reject species eroding genetic modifications of all sorts and support harmonious relationships
with Nature.
“As we celebrate the World Environment Day, we urge everyone to be eco-defenders, secure the environment and by this secure our well-being and that of future generations. Let us care for the Earth as it is our Mother, not our enemy.”
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