NDDC launches tree planting to tackle environmental challenges

As the world commemorated World Environment Day recently, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) announced the launch of a tree-planting campaign aimed at promoting environmental sustainability and community development in the Niger Delta region.

The campaign kicked off with a stakeholders’ meeting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State to create awareness and spur behavioural changes.

Speaking at the occasion, the NDDC Director of Environmental Protection and Control, Onouha Obeka, assured that the commission was committed to enhancing biodiversity, mitigating climate change and improving the quality of life of the people in the region.

He commended the stakeholders who volunteered for the cause, urging them to remember the importance of environmental stewardship and collective action in creating a more sustainable future for the Niger Delta.

Obeka emphasised the importance of tree planting in addressing critical issues that contribute to environmental degradation, including the lack of eco-frie++ndly practices, deforestation and unethical business practices.

As part of the activities marking this year’s World Environment Day, with a focus on ‘End plastic pollution’, the NDDC donated seven waste segregation disposal facilities to the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.

Obeka observed that the university campus was environmentally friendly, owing to its green campus policy. He noted that the Commission was invited to support the existing environmental culture.

The Director of Works, Henry Onu, who represented the Vice-Chancellor of the University, commended the NDDC for its numerous interventions that had benefited the institution, and assured that the waste facilities would be put to good use.

In a related development, Journalists for Sustainable Development Initiative (JSDI), a body of journalists committed to environmental advocacy has trained students in Kaa community in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State on how to plant trees and be climate ambassadors.

The training, which was part of the annual tree planting awareness campaign of JSDI, was held at the Government Secondary School, Kaa and Community Primary School, Kaa simultaneously.

Executive Director of Journalists For Sustainable Development Initiative (JSDI), Dr Parry Saroh Benson, discouraged indigenes of the community against indiscriminate felling of trees, adding that training of students was important in order for them to be climate ambassadors.

Responding, the Menebua Ka Babbe 1V, Mene Benjamin Kii, who was represented by Chief Nuator Nwineedam thanked JSDI for coming to create awareness in the community and promised that the community would protect the trees that had been planted.

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