SALALAH, March 13 - Call it a self deterrent or self discipline to protect environment, the civil society in Taqah launched a project titled ‘Environment Citizen’ to convince people that certain day-to-day practices go against the environment.
“Those practices may not be intentional but they become so gross when it comes to the environment that they do irreparable loss to the echo system and human beings also become victim of that,” said Mohammed bin Awad al Shanfari, Supervisor at the Directorate General for the Environment and Climate Affairs in Dhofar.
The purpose of ‘environment citizen’ is a kind of soft intervention from among the community to save the environment by telling people not to indulge in certain anti-environment practices like littering on the beaches and some tourist spots which are environmentally sensitive.
The project was inaugurated under the theme ‘My Environment’ under the auspices of Ahmed bin Salem al Meshaikhi, Director of the Department of Social Development in Taqah.
Noor bint Ali Mubarak al Mashani, Head of Omani Women Association in Taqah, exhorted people to save environment and explained the importance of the environment. “They are part and parcel of our life. As much it is protected, as much we are happy, as every aspect of life is associated with our environment,” she said and added that it needed to be taught and stopped immediately if anything adverse is noticed by anyone.
“This is the whole idea of making ‘environment citizen’ as many people do things inadvertently. They realise their mistake when they are convinced about the amount of damage their actions are doing to the environment.”
The project, according to her, is a self-deterrent mechanism to encourage people to develop certain amount of discipline when they go the beaches or to tourist spots.
“When it comes to garbage disposal they just leave them in the open without understanding the consequences.” This project is open to all age groups but emphasis is there on children who are trained to take the message home and convey it to all the members of the family.
A discussion was held during the launch event on Tuesday, in which the participants also discussed the principles of building a cadre of ‘environment citizen’ by inculcating prevailing environmental concepts and improving the citizens’ environmental skills and mechanisms in order to maintain sustainable environmental development
The project includes two activites: the first aims at educating the community through awareness lectures etc and the second, honouring the individuals and institutions which contribute to the conservation and protection of the environment.
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