CHARLESTOWN, Nevis – MINISTER of Health, the Hon. Hensley Daniel on Wednesday urged the youths of Nevis to make saving the earth a 365-day activity and not just something that is remembered on Earth Day.
Minister Daniel made the remarks while addressing the second annual rally organised by the Nevis Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) in commemoration of Earth Day (Apr. 22) yesterday at the Cultural Centre Park, Old Hospital Road.
The Minister, who joined representatives of NSWMA and students from the Jocelyn Liburd and Charlestown Primary Schools in a march from Grove Park to the Cultural Centre, told the students to maintain the earth daily to ensure that 30 years from now Nevis’s development would reflect their thinking and their efforts.
Minister Daniel also said that the responsibility to clean up the island rests on the NSWMA, but the responsibility to reduce the amount of waste they have to clean up lies with young people. He urged the youths not to over-work the NSWMA by finding ways to reduce waste.
He also charged the students to plant at least two trees for every one tree they cut down by the time Earth Day comes around next year. He later planted a flamboyant tree in the Park.
Also making remarks was the Manager of NSWMA, Carlyn Lawrence, who revealed that the students in the rally were part of an after school environmental club set up by the Authority.
She said students were taught how to reduce litter, what happens to the litter once the garbage truck takes it away, and how to keep their school campuses clean.
She said the students were appointed Litter Wardens at their campuses and her organisation would be monitoring the programme to ensure it goes well.
Similar programmes were also set up at Maude Cross Primary and Ivor Walters Primary Schools, but their students could not have attended the rally.
Yesterday’s programme also featured a presentation on the history of Earth Day, which was first observed in 1970, by Peace Corps volunteer Allyson Hakala.
The NSWMA also mounted a mini-exhibition on how waste could be reduced using simple methods.
