The earth is the most precious gift to mind kind, without it life would not exist. It provides everything needed to sustain life. Unfortunately, human have not been good care takers of the earth through the years.
Today as we commemorate this important day, it is worth to sit back and reflect on how we have treated the earth in our quest to sustaining it. The question should be, what have we done and are still doing to make the earth sustainable.
Countries, government and organization have in recent years drafted practice that will aimed at improving and making the earth sustainable over time. Popular amongst them being the SDG goals. About 9 of these goals directly addresses the earth and its ecosystem. We must make conscious effort to preserve the earth so that we can live peacefully and healthy.
We can do this by consciously adopting healthy practice such as good agricultural practice. We can produce more on less lands, this can be achieved when we produce food where it is most likely to survive, less land, less water. The use of fertilizers should be minimized as possible, most of these artificial fertilizers pollutes our lands and water bodies which in the long run affect the habitat of most living things. Farmers should be encouraging to sustainable practices with the aim of higher yields and at the same time preserving the land.
If we could take strides not to overfishing and bad fishing method which could disrupt the balanced sex life, it would improve life under water. In Ghana, not long ago, there was a ban on fishing to allow some peace in the sea. This was to improve aquatic life and ensure that certain see spices have the time to breed so they do not go extinct. We can also protect the earth by adopting clean energy, we all aware of issues if climate change and global warming. Most of this machines and auto-mobiles we use today omit a lot of carbon dioxide into the air. We can do better if healthy practices and inventions become our focus.
In Ghana the issue of galamsey (illegal mining) has become quiet problematic, water bodies are constantly being polluted with cyanide and other chemicals, lands are not reclaimed after mining activities. In the near future a loaming water and food crises is bound to engulf the country if stringent measures are not taken. There is an urgent need for reforestation of some of these degraded lands to restore some sanity in the air and land. In our individualistic capacity, we can take cautious efforts to reduce the waste we generate especially non-biodegradable waste, we can adopt the reuse of most household essentials.
In time past, communal labour was in vogue, this practice can be revisited to help clean our environment. Recently in Ghana, the Sectorial Minister for Lands and Natural Resources launched a tree planting exercise all aimed at improving the vegetation in Ghana. We can also in our small way help see this goal achieved by planting or adopting a tree to see it grow.
The Ghana YMCA calls on government to intensify the education on the need to conserve and preserve our Mother Earth
#the earth is all we have.
