By TINA TIMOTHY

The Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development (FENRAD) has called on all global regimes, governments, industrialists and men of conscience to save the environment by taking a critical look at such tiny organism as the earthworm and consider its usefulness to the farmer as it deposits minerals to the soil and improve soil structure leading to a rich harvest, but the farmer is eager to obliterate this organism.

FENRAD, in a press statement dated May 22, 2022 and signed by its Executive Director, Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor and Head Corporate Accountability and Human Rights Enforcement, Barr. Akande Femisi, buttressed this point and demanded ‘a fuller earth for all’ in celebration of the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) 2022.

The statement reads: “Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development, FENRAD, a pro-democracy and environmental rights advocacy group celebrates the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) 2022.

“Biodiversity Day 2022 comes with the topic 'Building a Shared Future for All,' being a call on humanity to do its best towards ensuring a fuller and better earth. This global initiative, indeed, reminds us all the need to put effort in the campaign to attain a greener and fuller earth than we have today. This is a global good!

“The IDB was created in December 29, 1993 being the date the Biological Diversity Convention entered into force following the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA’s) Second Committee guideline. Afterwards, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted May 22 as the IDB day to mark the adoption of the Convention made possible by the Nairobi (Kenya) Final Act of the Conference for the Adoption of the Text of the Convention on Biological Diversity in the year 2000. Since then, the world has marked this special day which today has become part of Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs advocacy.

“Today’s event means much to us at FENRAD as an environmental rights group. The world has indeed lost lives, whether aquatic, terrestrial or any other aspect one wishes to look at it. The issue of loss of biodiversity in the current global environmental regime is not new with attendant dangers emanating from ecological collapse evident in unfriendly human activities like: overgrazing, deforestation, ocean acidification, invasive species, rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, bush burning, etc. The theme ‘Building a Shared Future for All’ beckons on us today to show greater commitment and responsibility towards liberating our endangered earth, especially in this day and age of climate change. It is a message we must not only heed but take seriously.

“All lives matter. To buttress this point, one needs to look at the earthworm and the farmer. Considered a little tiny organism, the earthworm deposits minerals to the soil and improve soil structure leading to a rich harvest, but the farmer is eager to obliterate this organism. Survival of all organisms in the ecosystem, available data show, depends a great deal on the survival of other species, and this includes the survival of man. This is why environmental science talks about symbiosis, a kind of healthy, mutual and interdependent affair among organisms/lives.

“Today, in line with achieving a fuller and greener planet, FENRAD calls on all global regimes, governments, industrialists and men of conscience to desist from activities like logging, poaching, carbon emissions, extermination and all forms of unkindness to the environment. Little lives can save us all if we agree to live and let other species live; this is the fuller earth we advocate.

“It is indeed a shame that in Nigeria, governments talk much about agriculture as a pathway to economic diversification and development and yet does little to encourage that sector. Worst is, among all the major political parties spending millions of Naira on expression of interest and nomination forms, none talks of biodiversity or the need to preserve the earth and lives thereof. This environmental approach in national politics pale in significance when compared with the policies and advocacies of parties like Green Party in, say, America or elsewhere or even when compared with advocacies by globalists and statesmen like Al Gore who champions environmental awareness through ‘Live Earth” musical concert. Environmental responsibility and Biodiversity need to form major plank of political parties' campaign and manifesto in the 21st-century Nigeria!

“There’s no greater or better gift and legacy we can bequeath the next generation than a fuller and greener earth where those who come after us are able to deal and interact with diverse species in a thriving and symbiotic world. We end it by saying, ‘Happy Biodiversity Day, may we build a shared future for all lives, for us and for those after us’.”

Update news