Vincentians reminded to explore ways to assist in maintaining the environment

Choices we make today to preserve the environment will impact positively on future generations.{{more}}

And as Vincentians joined with the rest of the world on June 5 to observe World Environment Day, they were reminded of their responsibility to explore ways in which they could assist in maintaining the environment.

“What happens in my backyard affects somebody else in their backyard; what happens on my farm up the hill affects what happens on my farm down the hill…so the connection is very intimate,” Joan Ryan, public relations and marketing manager at the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) explained, as she spoke at a World Environment Day rally at Heritage Square in Kingstown.

“As such, all of us, every person of this country, must become involved in environmental management,” she continued.

The responsibility of the organisation she represented is to supply potable water and solid waste management to consumers, but in order to continue doing this, the cooperation of the public is required, Ryan said.

“As we commemorate World Enviroment Day, I ask you to reflect on your responsibility as individuals and as entities to see what we can do to pay tribute to the environment.

“I want to know what it is that you can do to ensure some of our problems, as far as the environment is concerned, are resolved,” Ryan said.

She shared some statistics that showed that global food occupied 25 per cent of all habitable land, was responsible for 70 per cent of fresh water consumption, 80 per cent deforestation and 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Though absent, Health Minister Clayton Burgin, in a presentation read by Cherese Jack, assistant project coordinator for the National Biosafety Framework project, indicated that the world’s natural resources are being tested as people are producing and consuming more.

More waste is also being produced and the increasing global population is putting pressure on the world’s limited resources.

He said that the world has now reached a tipping point, where sustainable consumption means having to do more with less.

“The depletion of the world’s resources is compromising our well-being and quality of life,” the minister said.

The planet could no longer afford to go down this path, however, and sustainable lifestyles are being encouraged, he said. (DD)