Monday, February 13, 2012

Littering still a major problem in Sabah: Masidi

Sandakan: The environment must be the first priority when it comes to utilisation of natural resources.

"We in Sabah must play a crucial role to ensure that our activities especially the utilisation of natural resources such as forest activities, opening of land for agriculture activities, mining of minerals and others are done without degrading the environment and the natural resources," said Tourism, Culture and Enviroment Minister, Datuk Masidi Manjun.

Pointing out that this was the State's bit towards addressing climate change, he said it was imperative to strike a balance between development and environmental protection through the application of sound environmental management principles such as the implementation of the Environmental Impact Assessment System.

"The other increasingly important tool in environmental management is environmental education," he said, when launching the 2nd Malaysian Environmental Education Conference at the Rainforest Discovery Centre here, Monday.

He said environmental education should be enhanced further and effectively implemented at all levels of society, its implementation to be tailor-made to specific target groups.

Apart from being blessed with an abundance of natural resources, Masidi said Sabah was also fortunate to have a policy on environmental education that was initiated under the Bornean Biodiversity and Ecosystems Conservation Programme (BBEC), which was approved by the State Cabinet in 2009.

He added the policy was targeted to instill environmental stewardship and sustainable lifestyle among the people in Sabah.

"Another milestone in the progress of environmental education in Sabah is the establishment of the Sabah Environmental Education Network (Seen) in March 2005," he said, adding Seen consists of 34 organisational members with the aim to enhance environmental education, communication and awareness efforts in Sabah through networking, cooperation and coordination.

Towards this end, he said environmental education's biggest challenge was changing people's attitude and perception.

"For example, littering is still one of the biggest environmental problems in Sabah and Malaysia in general," Masidi said, lamenting that many still left it to the authorities to address this matter.

"It is very sad that there are still people who are indifferent about cleanliness and are not willing to change their negative habits," he said, adding the government through its agencies and departments has organised various efforts to increase awareness.

Read more on: http://www.borneocolours.com/thebuzz/48-news/2614-littering-still-a-major-problem-in-sabah-masidi

Green Sabah says: Environmental education is very important. It is disheartening when people have the awareness on the importance of protecting our environment and natural resources, but lack of effort to apply it in their daily life. Same goes with littering problem. We must change such attitude and be more responsible towards our environment.

6 comments:

Mohd Ishak said...

Rakyat perlulah dididik untuk menjaga kebersihan, anak-anak kita belajar sivik dan moral di sekolah, tapi kita sebagai dewasa tidak menjadi contoh yang baik kepada mereka.

Mohd Ishak said...

Masih lemahlagi kesedaran sivik rakyat kita, walaupun ada tong sampah tapi mereka tidak gunakannya.

TuhauBam said...

Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live sustainably.

Anonymous said...

'melentur buluh biarlah dari rebungnya.'tabiat untuk menjaga kebersihan perlu dipupuk sejak dari kecil. bila dah besar kesedaran ke atas penjagaan kebersihan akan sentiasa tersemat. nanti tidaklah wujud masalah2 pembuangan sampah di merata2 tempat.

Anonymous said...

walau apapun usaha dilakukan oleh kerajaan, jika orang awam sendiri enggan memberikan kerajasama, masalah ini tetap akan berlaku sampai bila2..

Anonymous said...

It is our duty to protect the environment. Preserve it for our future generation.

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