By Sailu Bah
The West African Birds Association has trained 120 young people from 24 schools and organizations within Banjul, Kanifing Municipality and
West Coast regions. This was revealed by the Executive Director of WABSA at the end of a Training of individuals in Brikama Upper Basic School on Friday 21st November 2014.
The Executive Director of WABSA, Lamin Jorbateh said the training is sponsored by PREE and IUN regional Organizations on Environmental Conservation and Nature, based in Guinea Bissau.
Mr. Jorbateh said WABSA’s first priority is to ensure the sustainability of the Environment and that is why they ventured into building the capacity of people especially young people on the Importance of Mangroves and the Dangers of coastal Erosion.
“We targeted young people because we believe that young people constitute the huge chunk of the population and they are also good in disseminating information to society,” he opined.
He said mangroves are very much important to the sustainability of the environment and can protect the environment from floods and coastal erosion.
Mr. Jorbateh said Mangroves are dying and little or no step is being taken to save them, adding if there are no Mangroves within the City, that would pose a threat to Banjul which is likely to experience floods; pointing out that this could result in the sinking of the city.
He spoke on the importance of mangroves to the society and the environment as well. He said mangroves can protect heavy sea water from entering the communities or homes and also serve as habitat for lot of Birds and breeding grounds for fish and other species such as crabs, lobsters and others which can serve as protein.
He explained that after the training, all participants would be taken to mangroves sites to observe the Nature and see the Mangrove environments and the different types of Mangroves and how to regenerate them as well.
He urged the participants to disseminate the information to their colleagues and parents.
Mr. Jorbateh also said Mangroves die because of human activities and bad environmental practices, such as littering and illegal dumping.
“The extinction of the mangroves are of great threat to our environment, it can affect the climate and also cause heavy floods in our environment, so therefore the authorities should try and work on these issues,” he urged.]]>
