As a way of creating citizens awareness, cautiousness and a sense of responsibility to protecting the environment, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) has embarked on the ‘HYPREP DAY OF CITIZENS ACTION” to commemorate the World Environment Day 2024.
Members of the HYPREP Environment Club drawn from schools in Ogoni, converged on the Bomu Creek, Gokana LGA, site of the mangrove restoration project, together with HYPREP to remove plastics from the sediments.
Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Professor Nenibarini Zabbey described the gesture as a strategic approach to mainstreaming citizens action and buy-in to environmental protection as it aligns with hashtag #GenerationRestoration. Prof Zabbey explained that restoration efforts require that every citizen will take action to restore degraded environments.
The PC added that the HYPREP mangrove restoration project is targeted at creating a viable ecosystem which sustainability will be mainly driven by community volunteers or vanguards who will monitor and measure the successes of restored mangroves in their communities long after the Project has ended.
The event was witnessed by members of the Civil Society from SDN, CERHD, CEDSI and SWAYA.
On Saturday, HYPREP led the Nigerian Environmental Society (NES), Rivers State Chapter, to plant mangroves at the Bomu Creek to kick-off this year’s World Environment Day with the theme “Our land, our future: land restoration, desertification and drought resilience”
The WED 2024 climaxed with the conferment of an award by the NES on the Project Coordinator in recognition of his Environmental Stewardship in Restoration of Degraded Lands in Nigeria.
Since 2017, HYPREP has shown tremendous commitment in its mandate to restore degraded land shorelines, restore mangroves and improve people’s livelihoods.
Meanwhile, in a statement released to mark the WED, the PC noted that HYPREP has been at the forefront of designing and implementing holistic initiatives to address Ogoniland’s socio-ecological challenges of hydrocarbon pollution and it is remediating oil-degraded lands, and shorelines, restoring mangroves, providing potable water, strengthening the public health system, building local capacity, constructing legacy infrastructure such as the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Restoration (CEER), creating alternative livelihoods and promoting co-existence for a sustainable future of Ogoniland.
