Today, Wednesday, June 5 is World Environment Day, an annual United Nations’ epoch intended  to sharpen global consciousness on the need to save the earth and its rich endowments, particularly the environment. The theme of this year’s observance is “Think, Eat and Save” and emphasises oppositon to food wastage through a campaign to preserve food.

According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), every year, 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted. This is equivalent to the amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Also,  one in every seven people in the world goes to bed hungry while more than 20,000 children under the age of five die daily from hunger.

Sadly, while the planet is struggling to provide  enough resources to sustain its seven billion people, the  FAO estimates that a third of global food production is either wasted or lost to poor storage.

Without doubt, food loss  is  an avoidable drain on natural resources and a major contributor to negative environmental impacts. Anytime food is wasted,  all the resources committed to its production are also lost. For example, it takes about 1,000 litres of water to produce a litre of milk while about 16,000 litres go into cow’s food to have enough to make a hamburger. The resulting greenhouse gas emission from the cows themselves, and all others in the food supply chain, all end up in vain, when food is wasted.

As is customary, the Nigerian government like others of the world, safe-Earth advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations and even faith-based bodies will attempt to inject some meaning into what has become an annual ritual to preserve the environment for  the present and future generations.

Seminars, lectures and symposia will also make the day, in various states and the federal, so as to properly engage stakeholders on possible solutions to the environmental dangers the country faces.

Unfortunately, due to lack of the most needed political will, on the part of government, attempts to outlaw gas flaring and other forms of green house gas emissions in the land still remain an impossibility. Another, is the level of crude oil production activities with attendant destruction of the hinterlands.

The near-frequent destruction of petroleum products’ pipelines by crude-oil thieves, resulting in man-made spills, have also continued unabated, with grave consequences to the fragile environment. So disturbing, sourcing potable drinking water in parts of the country, particularly Rivers State, has become a major challenge, as viritually every metre drilled produces petroleum wastes rather than water.

These are only few examples of environmental challenges, Nigeria  has  been grappling with.  The list includes, but not limited to, increasing threats to fishing and farming activities in  the Niger Delta.

The questions policy makers,  in Nigeria, must answer are: what has been done to preserve the environment, since the last observance, same time last year? How many trees have various governments planted to check natural disasters and erosion? How safe is the earth on which the citizenry today depends for the most basic of human needs-water. How much efforts have been put into conscientising the largely uninformed citizenry about the imminent challenges of climate change? What tangible progress has been made to save the environment for the future?

These are  questions that ought  to engage the leadership of most countries  particularly, sub Saharan Africa who are prone to famine, disease and hunger, on account of the unpredictability  of their clime, that regularly  leave little for their  teeming populations.

It is on this strength, we think, countries must better  appreciate the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, Think, Eat and Save.” They must make conscious efforts to preserve the earth for more productive agricultural activities  for the survival of their peoples and even save for the rainy day. Sub Saharan Africa needs to take very seriously,  tree planting  to prevent further deforestation caused by senseless felling of trees that frequently put the environment to avoidable climatic dangers. They must also check the incessant bush-burning by farmers because it destroys vital micro-organisms upon which mankind depends for existence.

This year’s World Environment Day will  make better sense if planners succeed in positively engaging the populace in a manner that results in attitudinal changes in the handling of health related, environmental challenges, that, in the long run, help preserve the environment for generations to come.