Dean Seeks Environmental Protection Measures

A university teacher, Prof. Alafuro Enos Epelle, has called for more proactive measures by environmental scientists to tackle the environmental menace facing Nigerians.
Professor Epelle who is the Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, of the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt stated this while exchanging views with The Tide on the inability of environmental experts and the government to pay proper attention to environmental degradation in the country.
He stressed that the role man plays has been difficult for the environment and called for a change of attitude.
He called on experts to rise up to the challenge and proffer far reaching solutions to the issues.
According to him, since the establishment of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEMA) and the evolution of the Ministry of Environment, there has been lots of Environment Impact Assessments (EIAs), saying more still needed to be done with issues of environmental management.
He said though nature has put in place factors to make the environment clean, man in his exploitative manner has not been able to manage the environment properly.
According to him, contamination of the environment is  inevitable since activities of man and natural occurrence also play their own roles.
He further said oil prospecting desertification and deforestation which affect 70 per cent of the nation’s landscape must be checked to avoid further damage to the environment.
The university teacher stated that environmental protection was given massive attention between 1960 and 1998 , stressing that “existing guidelines for environmental protection in Nigeria were more of pronuncement than enforcement”.
On measures for oil spills clean-up, Prof. Epelle warned against the use of chemicals in the envisaged clean-up of oil pollution in the Niger Delta region. He stressed that it would be safer to use bacteria for the clean-up of oil spills instead of using chemicals, as in other climes.
As he puts it, most tertiary institutions in collaboration with other scientific bodies were working on the possibility of adopting the use of bacteria as method for the clean-up exercise of the polluted Niger Delta communities are characterized by creeks swamps water ways and huge reserves of oil which have enabled Nigeria to become the  world 8th largest oil exporter.
He however said that decades of exploration by natural and multi  wind companies had contaminated and destroyed there land and fresh water resourced leaving the residents in anguish and abject poverty.

Bethel Sam Toby