Environmentalists have called for a change of behaviour that is contributing negatively to the environment, in order to save the earth.
The experts, who are members of the Nigerian Environmental Society, Abia State chapter, made the call on Saturday in Umuahia, in commemoration of the World Earth Day.
The state Chairman of the environmental society, Uchenna Onyeizu, said the day was set aside to remind everyone of their behaviour towards the Mother Earth.
He said the day was identified to create awareness on the rampant increase of pollution, global warming, deforestation and destruction of environmental resources across the board.
Mr Onyeizu, while condemning people’s negative behaviour towards the environment, said “your local action has a global effect.”
According to him, “the things we do locally at our immediate environment have one or two impacts on the global environment and when the global environment is highly deteriorated, definitely, it will affect the individual.”
He said: “When you carelessly manage your waste and pollute your environment, they have a quiet way of getting back to your food chain and getting back to poisoning you, the polluter.
“Our behaviour, maybe, our orientation did not put into high consideration the environment sensitivity in our growing up.”
Mr Onyeizu, who is a university lecturer, said “We were also looking at Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which had to do with how we make use of our resources so that our future generation could also have enough to use or exploit.
“We are not saying don’t use environmental resources for our survival as humans, but what we are saying is do we sit down together and agree on how to make use of these resources for sustainability?”