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Plastics real danger to our environment
2007-09-19 08:46:16
By Editor
A visiting foreign journalist noted more than ten years ago that Tanzania`s general environment was visually appalling.
He was more specifically referring to the state of garbage collection and its impact on public health, the chronic and in some cases acute shortage of water for human and other use, and deforestation.
The journalist then asked then President-elect Benjamin Mkapa what the incoming government would do about taking the environment seriously `other than tagging it onto a Ministry or making it an ineffective department as is the case at the present time`.
Mkapa, who already boasted years of experience as a member of the Cabinet and elsewhere in the public service, readily admitted that the environment was a major source of water supply because it had direct effect on the clouds that bring in rains and thus on the state of forests and the availability of usable and affordable alternative sources of energy.
He also saw the need to protect and nurture the environment as a way of guaranteing the nation adequate supply of energy, adding that the physical disposition of the country`s urban areas, garbage collection, the sanitation situation and housing were all of great concern to the government.
The President-elect said one of the things he was sure to tell his Local Government and Regional Administration minister would revolve around the need to agree with the central Government about greater controls and empowerment in terms of a resource base for local authorities.
The idea was to help the authorities strengthen themselves in respect of human resources and more effectively sustain equitable development consistent with things like environmental needs and population growth.
As things stand, there has not been that much of a departure from the scenario Mkapa was discussing. The dream of establishing the `proper` local government he promised to make a reality has not fully come true – of course, with some areas having greater headway than others.
Even the problems relating to the current state of the environment in the country are not evenly distributed among the 20-plus regions, scores of urban authorities and hundreds of villages.
All things considered, however, the fact is that we will be in for an environmental catastrophe unless we learn to behave more responsibly than we have hitherto done.
Many industrialised countries were recently approaching choking point with regard to the levels of indoor and outdoor pollution they are now wrestling with.
They have ultimately learnt to appreciate the need to care for the environment but it would surely have been too late for their interventions to help were they as poor as most developing countries are.
This experience should serve as a lesson to our country, where for many people noises about environmental degradation hardly make any sense and they continue to treat toxic and other substances or items endangering the environment as if they were as safe and friendly as composite manure.
The environmental road we are travelling is a hell run. We had better be forewarned.
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