As part of efforts to lessen the effects of climate change in Nigeria, the Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation for Peace (COFP) has called on the federal government to provide seedlings to schools as it planted 150 trees at the Science Primary School in Kuje, Abuja.
The Executive Director of the foundation, Rev. Sister Agatha Chikwelue, said that the exercise which took place on Thursday was in commemoration of the 2022 International Children’s Day, and to aid the government in lessening the effects of climate change in the FCT.
In her words, “Celebrating with the children is to make them understand their importance in society. I always say that there is no future without children. There is no sustainability without children.
“When we talk about the future of humanity, then we’re talking about children. Every year we have this culture of celebrating with children.
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“For this year’s celebration, we decided to make it a little bit different by focusing our attention on tree planting because of what is happening today in our environment.
“As we are talking, we all know that the climate change conference COP27 in Egypt was held because of the level of destruction of the environment that has led to climate change.”
Chikwelue emphasised that the foundation decided to visit the kids to raise their awareness of environmental issues and to teach them the value of environmental protection.
“We decided to go towards the sub-satellite towns in the FCT so that we will be able to get more children who are living in the community.
“They will know the importance of tree planting and how to hold their teachers and parents responsible.
“Let them always remind their parents and teachers to always plant trees and whenever they cut one tree they must replace it with five trees.
“This is one of the best ways to checkmate and mitigate the impact of climate change,” she said.
In order to ensure that climate change and other environmental concerns are adequately addressed, Chikwelue also urged the private sector and other important players to help the project by contributing seedlings and offering other potential solutions.
Mrs Asabi Boyi, the school’s head teacher, promised that the school administration would see to it that the trees were properly supervised.
Tree planting serves to lessen the effects of climate change on the environment, according to Mr Danladi Sule, Head of Department, Primary School Services, Local Education Authority Project, who also spoke at the occasion.
Sule also urged the government and the general public to make it a habit to plant trees because doing so will help the nation’s environmental problems.
Story was adapted from NAN.
