By CHARLES IWUOHA, Enugu

An environmental rights group, the Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Advocacy Network (Lead Network) has called for concerted efforts towards environmental education and awareness among youths to build sustainable healthy earth in future.

The Executive Director of Lead Network, Mr. Chukwuma Okenwa, told newsmen in Enugu at the weekend that youths must be in the forefront of protecting the earth.

He said that Nigerians, especially the youths, needed to be encouraged to shun negative attitudes that jeopardised the safety of the environment.

According to him, the government and developmental partners should sensitise Nigerians to ensure all developmental activities are done sustainably and with minimal negative impact on the environment.

He said: “Nigerians at the moment are not doing enough in encouraging environmental protection and conservation despite the obvious challenges of environmental degradation confronting us all.

“The government and environmental protection regulatory agencies should do more to check the indiscriminate abuse and pollution of the environment emanating from domestic and industrial sources.

“The adverse impacts of indiscriminate dumping of refuse, blocking of water ways, emptying of toxic waste in waters, cutting trees indiscriminately, damaging vehicle emissions etc are already here with us.

“The negative consequences of these ugly and earth damaging practices are beginning to steer us on the face daily in the country.

“This is responsible for the unprecedented level of flooding, drought, desertification, disease outbreak and disruption of rainfall patterns, which has largely affected food production noticed in recent times.”

Okenwa, however, said that if efforts were not stepped up towards environmental protection, the adverse impacts might be too much for the country to deal with in the nearest future.

The World Earth Day, which is celebrated worldwide on April 22 yearly, was meant to pledge support for environmental protection and implementing programmes for sustainable eco-system.

This year’s theme is ‘Restoring Our Earth’.