Some secondary school students in Buea, South West Region, have planted trees on the campus of Government Bilingual High School Muea, as a way of building ‘Green Cities’.
The students came from three school; the host Government Bilingual High School, GBHS, Muea, Charity Comprehensive Academy CCA Mile 16, Buea, and Bilingual Grammar School BGS, Molyko.
By Immaculate Mkong
The activity initiated and coordinated ERuDeF was in line with the theme of the 44th anniversary celebration of World Earth Day commemorated on April 23, 2014.
The representative of the Principal of GBHS Muea, Ms. Regina Tendonge, thanked ERuDeF for honouring her school to host the event.
Ita Nawom representating ERuDeF CEO, Louis Nkembi, appealed to the young people to practise sustainable ways of living, farming, waste disposal, building and water management because they are the ones to maintain the fight for nature conservation.
Ita also urged the students to respect the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development’s recent ban on non-degradable plastics, as it is a way of ensuring that the environment is kept clean and healthy.
For his part, the Head of ERuDeF’s Forest and Climate Change Unit, Kingsley Neba, told the students; “As people migrate from rural areas to cities, the bleak reality of climate change becomes very evident. The need to create sustainable communities has become more important.”
Neba called on the audience to plant trees and flowers to improve the quality of air, reduce the production of waste, promote waste recycling, plant trees to protect water catchments and avoid dumping refuse in water courses.
The students of Charity Comprehensive Academy CCA presented a sketch on the dangers of killing threatened wildlife species for food while encouraging the public to read The Green Vision for information concerning the environment.
The students were educated on how to create bare stem nurseries by ERuDeF’s botanist, Limbi Blessing.
Limbi explained to the students that these form of nurseries was the best because of the non-degradable nature of polluting bags, formerly used during seed nursing.
Students from all three schools nursed different agro-forestry species including Acacia, Leucaena and Caliandra. They also planted seedlings of some threatened trees notably, Prunus Africana and mahoganay on the GBHS Muea campus in a bid to make the campus green.
The Coordinator of the Environmental Club of GBHS Muea, John Bunyui Njabe, said given his 20-year experience in the field of environment many more students are gaining awareness through the cross-curricular approach he and others have been using to educate students on environmental issues.
A Geography teacher, Bunyui Njabe said his vision is to see that environmental studies are included in the school curricula.
Commenting on the ban on plastic wrappings, Njabe said plastics are not the only bio-non degradable products since there are others like bottles.
He suggested sensitization on the proper use and disposal of plastics, and that government should put in place a recycling plan. He expressed fear of problems with the alternatives such as it might be more expensive and give room for illegal importation.
Meanwhile, the host school, GBHS Muea, grabbed the first and third prizes of an essay writing competition, while CCA went home with the second prize.
“I am overwhelmed; I didn’t expect to receive the first prize because the competition was really tough. This prize has encouraged me a lot, and I plan to do more, to be a real ambassador of the environment just as we have been called today to be,” said David Malong, winner of the first prize.
His runners-up, Asah Brandon and Ngwane Bertina, had similar emotions to share.
Though with no prize to take home with, students of BGS Molyko expressed joy to have been honoured to participate in the celebration and were grateful to ERuDeF for knowledge gotten.
