TRNC is being turned into a rubbish dump
THE place where people live permanently is called the “environment”. Mountains, plains, meadows, forests, lakes, seas and rivers form the natural environment. The United Nations Environment Conference was convened in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 with the aim of protecting the natural environment. Environmental issues were discussed at this meeting. Member states sought common solutions against environmental pollution. At that conference, it was decided that June 5 would be “World Environment Day”. Every year, June 5 is celebrated as World Environment Day by the United Nations’ member states. Although we are not officially a member of the UN, June 5 World Environment Day events also take place in our country. However, by celebrating World Environment Day, organising symbolic events and quoting literary terms, our environment, which is constantly being destroyed, can neither be saved nor can environmental achievements be realised . . . Actions speak louder than words.
While our country being turned into a rubbish dump is a common shame for all of us, every statement from government officials about the environment is now grating on our nerves.
This is because we need action and precautions, not literature and words. The environment is an indicator of our sense of belonging. However, this sensitive scale is dragging on the ground in the TRNC.
We are fed up with environmental statements, speeches and useless symbolic rituals. In order to save our poor environment, which has been entrusted to us by our future generations and which has turned into an unforgivable shame for all of us, action must be taken together, especially by our state officials who have assumed political responsibility.
There is no other salvation for our environment. Where is that excitement, that participatory spirit?
The successful “Let’s Do It” campaign took place a few years ago and should have been repeated many times over in this heavily polluted country. The fact that it was not creates the perception that this work was done for the sake of populism and political investment. Our environmental landscapes in the TRNC are now much more disastrous, much more embarrassing than the days when the “Let’s Do It” campaign was carried out.
Let’s recall: we carried out the “Let’s Do It” campaign by using other countries as an example.
This was a nationwide environmental clean-up campaign with the participation of the entire public. However, what we call a “general clean-up campaign” cannot be done only once in a country and never again. This needs to be repeated periodically, over and over until environmental cleanliness and sensitivity becomes social consciousness, culture and a way of life for people of all ages.
Other countries organise this campaign periodically with this understanding and get the expected results very well.
“Let’s Do It” left a positive mark in our memory and is not an original environmental project that we created. In fact, this is a project that has been successfully tried for the first time in Estonia and has turned into a source of inspiration and synergy for the environment with its brilliant results and is implemented in other countries as well.
The idea for this large-scale international environmental project was brought to life in 2008 in the small Baltic country of Estonia, which then was much more polluted than ours.
Indeed, it was a great people’s movement for environmentalism. The initiated campaign and its positive results resonated in a way that set an example for the world.
It was estimated that only 5,000 people would be mobilised for the campaign. Contrary to what was thought, 50,000 Estonians came together on May 3, 2008, for a spectacular cleanup campaign that eliminated 10,000 tonnes of rubbish across the country in just five hours. If not for this campaign, it would have taken the Estonian government three years to manage this national clean-up with an expenditure of 22.5 million euros.
The echoes of this successful 2008 clean-up campaign quickly spread around the world. Similar clean-up and purification campaigns were organised in other countries with the slogan “Let’s Do It”. The spirit of “Let’s Do It” soon turned into “World Clean-Up”.
Nowadays, this spirit continues in civilised countries by becoming more ingrained and widespread. By 2018, the number of people joining together to create a clean world has reached five percent of the world’s population. Nowadays, the number of these volunteers is much higher.
Why shouldn’t Turkish Cypriots be among those volunteers?
Why not prove that we are a part of this world and not backward?
Why don’t we show that we really love this country by cleaning it up together?
In the first “Let’s Do It” movement organised, our country’s rubbish map was drawn up and the targets to be reached were determined. A conscious and organised study could always be done based on this map. Unfortunately that spirit is not seen much these days. How sad is it that the rubbish map is not seen very often.
One last regret: unfortunately, we are not in the mood to celebrate World Environment Day because of the environmental disasters we face that we created with our own hands.