Ecological beauty

This year's Earth Day theme, "Planet vs Plastics," offers an intriguing perspective. The term "versus" typically evokes thoughts of competition, yet in this context, it highlights the dire situation we face: our planet struggling against the overwhelming presence of plastic pollution. Our misuse of plastics has placed biodiversity in jeopardy, presenting a crucial choice between addressing the issue now or risking irreversible loss and potentially facing extinction.

Where does this problem stem from?

We've evolved into a society heavily reliant on plastic for various purposes like packaging, toys, and household items. While plastic usage itself isn't inherently negative, our inadequate disposal methods pose significant challenges. Many individuals and communities have normalized littering, possibly due to insufficient bins, lack of awareness, or simply ignorance—perhaps a combination of all three factors.
What are the consequences of this plastic pollution? The effects are multifaceted:

• Drainage blockages: In regions like Zambia, drainages often become dumping grounds. When left uncleared, this trash obstructs drainage systems, leading to residential flooding and stagnant water, fostering waterborne diseases.
• Land pollution: Plastics degrade chemically when exposed to heat, exacerbating global warming. Discarded plastic on land reacts with heat, releasing harmful chemicals that can alter soil composition. Crop cultivation on polluted land may result in the absorption of these chemicals, posing risks to human health.
• Biodiversity decline: Plastic litter poses threats to animals through entanglement, ingestion, and mistaken consumption. Loss of biodiversity disrupts ecosystems, jeopardizing their balance and functionality.

How can we address this crisis?

The solutions are not complex but require disciplined environmental stewardship:

• Reduce: Minimize plastic usage in daily life by opting for durable alternatives that don't necessitate immediate disposal. Transition from plastic packaging to eco-friendly options like paper or cotton bags.
• Reuse: Embrace reusable plastic items to reduce unnecessary waste. Utilize shopping bags and water bottles repeatedly to lessen reliance on single-use plastics.
• Recycle: Capitalize on plastic's recyclability by promoting proper waste management and recycling initiatives. Implementing durable labeled trash bins in public spaces can facilitate recycling efforts.
• Educate: Address the underlying mindset, attitude, and behavior driving plastic pollution. Increasing environmental awareness and fostering a sense of responsibility can reshape societal norms and practices.

Education is key to eradication. By enlightening individuals about the importance of environmental preservation, we can cultivate a global community committed to sustainable practices and safeguarding our planet's future.

The intrinsic value of nature is beautiful in it's uniqueness. How calm nature will make you feel and give you a sense of peace is just amazing. Talk about enhancing your spiritual life, spending time in the natural environment will draw you close to your creator because you get to marvel at the beauty He created for us to benefit from.

💚💚

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sophie-ngoma-669a561b5_impacts-of-el-ni%C3%B1o-on-food-security-ugcPost-7167821195898208257-Fyc8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

Something worse reading.

www.linkedin.com

As we continue to enjoy the festive season... Remember Christ is the reason for the season.

Firstly I'd like to thank all that shared knowledge on the question I asked here and on my LinkedIn a few days ago. From the question posedl last time and the answers given. This is my take.

We can not overemphasize the need for environmental education and awareness in schools, marketplaces, communities etc both rural and urban areas. information about environmental protection in urban areas is easy to access as compared to rural areas but less assimilated and practiced and I see why most environmental conservation organisations direct much of their focus on rural areas, at the same time, most of our surviving biotic natural resources are plenty in the rural areas and the occupants of rural areas understand better, the need to conserve the environment and ecosystems at large, once educated because their day to day lives depend on these resources such as freshwater bodies and plants. Urban area inhabitants don’t easily see the importance of conserving rivers and all because they are secondary consumers of these resources and know that the water will be purified before reaching them and they also have other alternatives such as access to mineral water but its different in rural areas where they depend on direct access to rivers.
Based on the above, it is easier to educate in the rural areas because almost everything is practical and applicable to all community members. Unfortunately, the urban occupants have so much information that they tend to ignore and not put into practice because they don’t feel the direct impact. But now with the high temperatures, change in seasonal patterns, soil degradation amongst others, it’s becoming tough for all because food security is threatened countrywide and ultimately health and education, which means slow social economic growth. In the past, many would say farming is for villagers but look at us now looking for farms because we need to survive and increase our productivity for the betterment of our nation. Which is not a bad thing but still we need knowledge on sustainable farming methods or else we’ll continuously disrupt soil fertility, disturb the GHG cycle and end up with little or no arable land as well as further pose negative effects on our climate. The earth is slowly bailing on us because of so much damage we have caused but we still have a chance to mitigate our climate and keep our environment safe for our habitation if we all work in unity and see eye to eye.
All in all, there is need to bridge this gap by finding more effective means and ways to communicate with the urban occupants in ways more relatable to them and helping them understand the need of environmental protection and empathize with rural occupants who are directly affected by the environmentally unfriendly activities happening in urban areas. There’s need for many and more green innovations that will help us going forward.
Its high time we walked the talk with the little resources each one of us have, Rome was not built in one day so we can do this and make a difference for today and tomorrow. To the Zambian youths following me or connected with me here, I am inviting you to join the Zambia youth biodiversity network so we can work for the betterment of our country, continent and planet. We start with making a change right where we live.
We will soon be reviewing our plans for next year's activities as an organisation and everyone’s input will be highly valuable.

Sophie Ngoma ( beauty)
Zambia Youth Biodiversity Network member.

https://chat.whatsapp.com/L6ObZqMMaRi5S16aSCCP7Y

Do you think conservation and environmental education efforts are channeled more to rural areas than urban areas or vice versa?

Kindly give a reason to your answer. (why do you think this is so?)

-My career path discovery journey-

*Long passage ahead

When I got into university, there was only one dream, to become a doctor and save lives, then become a cardiologist and make an impression or prove a point to a world that cares less if I impress them or not. If not, become and engineer or something else regarded as “VIP” but all I can say is that life is not a show that everybody should like and be impressed with, and we all have different strengths and weaknesses that we ought to figure out early in life if we are to become the best versions of ourselves. Of course, not applied to all but circumstances exist, that hinder certain things but that should not stop anyone from still trying. In Second year, I was placed under pure biology, and I won’t lie, it was difficult for me because of the stigma that surrounded being a pure program student. I even had two carried courses so what was I to do, spend forever crying or forge ahead? Of course, the latter. At CBU if you’re placed in a pure program, you’re considered less intelligent and whatnot. I won’t lie, I also thought it was an easy way out since everybody said it was easy but the experience of it was totally different, Pure Biology that I thought was the easiest wasn’t actually as easy as I thought it would be, I had it all worked out that I was generally good in biology so what could be difficult? After getting into the program, I understood why biologists were always studying. To my surprise, just like other programs It was a series of notes that never ended plus calculations in analytical chemistry that never ended, with some concepts hard to grasp.

One of our lecturers sent us a guide to the biology program that had details about what specialisations were in Pure biology that we would choose to specialise in, and I would look through the guide almost every week until I understood what each specialization was all about and started to find pride in my program subsequently developing more interest. At the time, I read a lot about climate change and heard a lot about the school of natural resources, which was another program that got teased. We call the students from there “infore pronounced as in-fo-reh” because the popularly known program is forestry. Finding out that there were more programs in the school of natural resources that related to climate change and environment had me wishing I had done more research before and after first year because I had interest in environmental studies. My interest in matters concerning climate change grew by the day as I read more so I decided I’d specialise in a program that would lead me to an environmental career. For me that program was biodiversity and ecology. I finally knew what I wanted to do, and I was more excited for the next year. The next academic year I was placed in entomology but found someone to swap with so I could be in the program I wanted to be in. My self-discovery led to creation of purpose, and this helped improve my grades a lot because I knew what I was doing, and I knew what I wanted.

In a nutshell, we may sometimes discover what we want to do in life later than everybody else but once we discover our purpose, there’s no going back and career becomes fun and enjoyable. With a whole technologically wired world, young people should not have to wait till second year of university like some of us to discover what they want to do and be. Ask around and research before university, it can be when you just complete grade 12 or even while still in school. During my time, most of us only knew about medicine and engineering as the programs we ought to pursue because they were the most prestigious, however I discovered every program has its importance and all programs interlink at some point, so we cannot have all doctors, nurses or engineers, we need people to teach, to control finances, to market products, to handle administrative work, to handle the labs, to manage the environment, to design structures, etc. So, to the young people out there reading this, please take note. Share with your children, siblings, nieces and nephews if you can.

-we will get there someday-

this big guy was cut down because he was eventually gonna cause the wall fence to collapse. cut into 4 to 6 pieces and left on the ground for future decisions but look at the logs about a month and a half later, producing new shoots. continuing with life successfully.

in life we encounter different obstacles including other people trying to cut us into pieces with their words or actions but that should not prevent us from continuing with life, plans we have sometimes change due to circumstances but that should not be a reason for us to stop, we ought to not let situations control our lives and find alternatives, be problem solvers in our own personal lives if we are to be problem solvers in other areas of life, academics, work etc. as Christians especially, we must understand that Gid did not say there will be no storms but He will help us through the storms, that should be our source if strength.

nature is regenerative, it doesn't give up easily, it still finds a way to thrive amidst distress and we being part of nature should learn to mimic that. additionally we must all take a step at helping nature regenerate because that's what supports our survival here on earth, we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.


Greening for tomorrow

A few months ago, on my way back from church with a friend , we had popsicles and got done with them, I wondered where I could throw my popsicle wrapper and one thing I realized is how we just don’t have bins at all in our cities streets and areas. I littered and this got me thinking how much better it’d be to have bins in most parts of the city, it’s not all the time that one will have somewhere to keep their food wrappers before they get home to dispose of it. Unfortunately, this tradition of no bins and less routine clean ups in towns has become a bad norm. to an extent, I realized in as much as I am an environmentalist, at some point of my life I was polluted with the littering mentality while growing because it was normal, there was probably only one school I went to that littering was a grave offense, elsewhere, it was quite normal. Speaking of residential areas, those shouldn’t even be dirty because our yards are adjacent and if each person keeps their surroundings clean, we'd have very clean, litter free neighbourhoods, taking little time on weekends to just collaboratively pick litter and sweep our streets with whatever resources we have would make a great difference. Not only would it keep our environment clean but also give us opportunities to socialize with our neighbors within our respective neighbourhoods. Of course, there’s a lot of theft when bins are installed in our streets, but we can still have other types of bins made from materials that would be hard to steal even if one tried to e.g., concrete bins embedded in the ground in specific places as compared to PVC disposable bins. This also acts as an indicator for how much we need more recycling companies making a massive impact in our country for people to find themselves a little source of income from just picking litter like I saw during my years of staying in Kitwe, we also have to continuously spread awareness about not littering anywhere and anyhow.
🚯 🚮