Fight climate change, tertiary institutions urged

TERTIARY institutions must try new approaches to address environmental challenges caused by climate change, a lecturer at Africa University has said.

Speaking during a public lecture at Africa University last Friday, Environmental Studies lecturer Mrs Zanele Furusa appealed to students, teachers and lecturers to be proactive and take the initiative in coming up with environmentally friendly approaches, including systems and solutions needed to curb emerging environmental and economic challenges caused by climate change.

The public lecture was running under the theme “Environment and Culture”.

“There is a dire need to change our attitudes and come up with new innovations and environmentally friendly technology, as well as to engage communities in climate change mitigation and response strategies,’’ said Ms Furusa.

These approaches range from cultural to socio-economic.

Ms Furusa cited adverse examples of climate change, which included the increased distance people now have to walk to get firewood or water, erratic rainfall, as well as harsh weather conditions and food insecurity.

In addition, she highlighted declining aid from donor countries as one of the major reasons why developing countries should be self-reliant.

Goodwill Environment Ambassador for Zimbabwe Mr Dereck Mpofu said reverting to some cultural approaches could be an effective method of mitigating climate change.

“Modernisation has accelerated climate change and solutions could be in some of our cultural systems,” he said.

Mr Mpofu said cultural aspects like totems were effective as they were a method of preserving animals by regulating the consumption of certain animal species based on ethnic and tribal lines.

“The issue of leaving legacies of property and equipment was also a way of reducing wastage by containing and regulating overconsumption, and over production, as societies lived within their means,” he said.

“This had the domino effect of reducing pollution levels.”

Mr Mpofu acknowledged that culture alone was not sufficient to tackle environmental challenges.

“Culture evolves, and it would be tragic for us to say we are taking a holistic approach when attempting to use culture to address emerging environmental and economic challenges because we also need to look at the context as well as move with the times.’’

Mr Mpofu proposed environmentally friendly initiatives that will go a long way in mitigating the effects of climate change.