By Liapeng Raliengoane
LERIBE – Monday marked the kick-off of ReNOKA clean-up campaigns in commemoration of World Environment Day.
This kick off took place at Hlotse, Leribe and had masses including the youth collecting garbage from 12 different points in Hlotse.
A press statement by ReNOKA noted that this year, under the theme “OnlyOneEarth,” ReNOKA programme has planned a series of clean-up campaigns in commemoration of the day under the programme theme “Only One Earth, Only One Lesotho.”
The statement notes that the target for this year’s campaign is to collect 5 tonnes of waste with focus participation of one thousand students and youth together with additional support from other stakeholders and the general public. The activities will be done in four locations which are Hlotse, Mapholaneng, Semonkong and Mafeteng and the last activity will be on June 30.
Hlotse Urban Council Chairperson Ntšekhe Malimatle Molapo expressed gratitude to ReNOKA and everyone who took part in the initiative, he indicated that without ReNOKA’s support, Hlotse would not have been able to undertake the clean-up campaign, also, he urged for frequent clean-up movements within Hlotse.
World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 05 and is the United Nations’ principal vehicle for encouraging awareness and action for the protection of the environment.
According to the United Nations (UN), Earth faces a triple planetary emergency: the climate is heating up too quickly for people and nature to adapt; habitat loss and other pressures mean an estimated 1 million species are threatened with extinction; pollution continues to poison our air, land and water. “The way out of this dilemma is to transform our economies and societies to make them inclusive, fair and more connected with nature. We must shift from harming the planet to healing it”.
The good news is the solutions and the technology exist and are increasingly affordable. #OnlyOneEarth is the campaign for World Environment Day 2022. It calls for collective, transformative action on a global scale to celebrate, protect and restore the planet.
ReNOKA (‘we are a river’) is a national programme and citizen movement for the restoration of land and water in Lesotho and the Orange-Senqu basin. Support for ReNOKA is provided through a partnership between the Government of Lesotho, the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The EU and BMZ contributions are implemented through a technical assistance project “Support to Integrated Catchment Management in Lesotho” by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.