RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Vice Pres­i­dent of the Na­pari­ma Dis­trict Scouts Coun­cil Bebe Ajod­ha has called for a na­tion­wide cam­paign to en­hance en­vi­ron­men­tal con­scious­ness across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ad­dress­ing mem­bers of the Na­pari­ma Dis­trict Scouts Coun­cil’s 1st Cedar Grove Cub Pack on World En­vi­ron­ment Day cel­e­brat­ed on Wednes­day, Ajod­ha em­pha­sized the ur­gency of tack­ling land restora­tion, de­ser­ti­fi­ca­tion, and drought re­silience.

The event, held at Cedar Grove Pri­vate School, saw en­thu­si­as­tic Cubs plant­i­ng poui trees on the school com­pound and or­ga­niz­ing an ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing items made from re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als.

Ajod­ha high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of ed­u­ca­tion in solv­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal prob­lems, urg­ing a col­lec­tive ef­fort to ad­dress cli­mate change and its im­pacts.

“Ed­u­ca­tion will help us solve our prob­lems. When you throw lit­ter up­stream, it goes down­stream. Don’t lit­ter, re­cy­cle, put garbage in the cor­rect place, and ed­u­cate peo­ple about land degra­da­tion. Peo­ple need to un­der­stand the con­se­quences of their ac­tions,” Ajod­ha said.

While cur­rent ef­forts are com­mend­able, Ajod­ha said much more needs to be done to com­bat cli­mate change and pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment.

She point­ed out the vis­i­ble ef­fects of cli­mate change on lo­cal coast­lines, specif­i­cal­ly cit­ing ris­ing sea lev­els in Ma­yaro.

“We are hear­ing that cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing. It is a big prob­lem, and we need to do our part,” she re­it­er­at­ed.

De­spite ex­ist­ing laws and the pres­ence of lit­ter war­dens, Ajod­ha ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of mon­i­tor­ing and en­force­ment, sug­gest­ing that re­al progress de­pends on in­di­vid­ual con­scious­ness and ad­e­quate staffing and re­sources.

She praised the Scouts for their on­go­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion and tree-plant­i­ng ac­tiv­i­ties but said there was a need for a broad­er, coun­try­wide cam­paign on en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness.

“The Scouts are do­ing their part to ed­u­cate and plant trees. We need a coun­try­wide cam­paign on en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness,” she urged.