Excerpts:
Henry Ekwuruke: Sir, how would you succinctly define environment and environmental management?
Chief Victor: The term environment is all-encompassing. It is the entire surroundings of man, made up of both living and non-living components. Living components include plants and animals in their various forms, while non-living components include the air, water bodies, landscape, built up areas, infrastructures, etc. Environmental management simply refers to man’s application of scientific, technical and social knowledge and skills in managing all components of the environment to ensure that the environment is not stressed beyond its productive capacity at any given time. The concept of managing the environment such that it can continue to provide basic needs and services for the present and future generations is referred to as sustainable environmental management.
H: What are the challenges you contend with and how do you cope with them?
CV: They are lots of challenges in the task of managing the environment. Generally, people tend to look at the environment as God-given and feel that there is no need to care for it. In the struggle for survival and development, man creates a lot of negative impacts on the environment. These impacts range from over-exploitation of resources, destruction of ecosystem, to air and water pollution problems. For instance, deforestation, indiscriminate bush burning, land mass clearing for agriculture or for urban development and mining activities can all lead to soil erosion, flooding and water pollution. On the other hand, gaseous emission and discharge of effluents from manufacturing industries can cause serious pollution of air and water. Severe soil erosion can impoverish rich land, resulting in poor agricultural yield while water pollution can negatively affect fish production in our rivers. In Lagos, for example, people talk about “odo alaro”(meaning purpled- coloured river). This is as a result of liquid waste discharged from neighbouring industrial plants into the river, which change the colour and chemical composition of the river, thereby making it inhabitable for many aquatic organisms.
A common challenge in our cities is the problem of solid waste management as most parts of our urban centres are littered with heaps of dirt. Oftentimes, the drainage systems are blocked, resulting in flooding of many access roads. Sources of urban wastes include homes, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, markets, motor-parks, and commuters in moving vehicles. Littering with nylon and sweet wrappers […] are a common sight in urban streets. In Singapore you would not see sweet wrappers; sweets are adorned with flowers.
Urban waste management demands a lot of financial input for the provision of appropriate machinery and manpower requirement, which the government most often cannot afford. The people on their part, have not shown the required commitment towards integrated waste management strategies, which includes waste reduction, sorting, recycling and responsible behaviour along our streets.
H: What are your prospects?
CV: Our prospect is to have a Nigerian population that is adequately aware of our environmental problems and also sees the need to address these problems collectively. We want to be able to encourage participation of all stakeholders in the task of environmental management, developers, the civil society, non-governmental organizations, communities, special interest groups (women and youths) etc. In particular, greater emphasis is being placed on community participation because the local communities are the main custodians of our environmental resources. It is in this regard that we have initiated a number of community-based projects such as the Community Herbal Heritage Centres, which has now been spread across the various ecological zones in Nigeria.
For example, to be able to participate effectively in the business of environmental management, they need to have access to credible information about the status, problems and prospects of our environment as well as strategies for addressing the problems. In this regard, we have developed a national strategy for environmental education and public awareness while we have also put in place appropriate structure for facilitating public access to environmental information in Nigeria. We now have environmental conservation clubs in many of our schools while we also have Desk Officers for environment information delivery in all states of the federation.
H: Sir, what is the government’s attitude to the implementation of the various indigenous rational policies regarding the environment?
CV: There are some problems with government policies, and the greatest problems we have are inconsistency of policies. Every government wants to do something new, oftentimes doing the same thing with a new name or strategy. This calls for policy change. Change is part of development, and when it is objective it can speed up development. However, frequent change of policies is not favourable for rapid development; [good policies should be maintained even if there is a change of government]. One major area of concern is the continuous creation of government agencies which may, after some time, be merged with other agencies. Our experience in Nigeria has always been “each government with its own policies”.
H: Sir, what would you delineate as the advantages of environmental management, or can we have a perfect environment?
CV: The benefits of environmental management are many. Environmental management enables us to monitor changes in the environment, identify the causes of these changes, and make predictions about the possible effects of these changes and fashion out strategies for addressing the negative impacts of the changes. The first target is to keep the environment healthy enough to be able to provide a safe habitat for man. The second thing is to keep the environment in an optimum state as to guarantee its capability to supply the necessary goods and services for man’s existence in punctuality. You see you cannot have a perfect environment. It is a wish rather than a reality. The best we could do in the course of development is to minimize the level of damage we make to the natural environment. Perfect environment is a bit difficult. It is one you do not alter at all; it is primitive.
H: What are your suggestions as to how even the common men and women can contribute towards improving the status quo of the Nigerian environment?
CV: To be an environmentalist, one does not have to be a degree holder. All that is required is appropriate awareness. We are all custodians of our environment, and we all need to care for it. Politicians, the academics, the civil servants, traders, teachers, students, farmers, the community and youth leaders all have a role to play in the protection of our environment. We should all develop responsibility.
H: Sir, what can you tell the people about the environmental management and your final word?
CV: I have said before that all should take responsibility and care for the environment you live in and do as much as you can do to make the environment a better place for me and you.
H: Thank you Sir for this wonderful interview.
CV: You are welcome.
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