The Honorable Minister of Environment, Professor Foday M. Jaward on Thursday March 18 interacted with members of the press at the Ministry of Information and Communications weekly Press briefing. Dr. Jaward was the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency but was reassigned as Minister when a new standalone ministry was established in November 2019. The mandate of the ministry is to formulate and facilitate the implementation of appropriate policies in relation to the environment.
The minister expressed his passion and desire to curb or minimize environmental pollution in the country, which has reached alarming proportions. He expressly mentioned illegal mining activities and timber logging as being the greatest hazards to our communities. He cited a dawn raid conducted across the country, which resulted in the seizure and destruction of 32 Dredgers operated by Ghanaian nationals operating illegally in the country. Several arrests were made including some section and town chiefs who were claimed to have authorized such activities.
On the achievements of his ministry so far, they hosted the Wangari Matthai and Africa Women’s Environmental Forum just before Covid19 was declared a global pandemic from 1-4 March 2020. Equally so, six key legislations ratified by Parliament and submitted to Cabinet have been approved.
- All agencies dealing with the Environment will now be under the purview of the Ministry.
- The wildlife Act of 1972 was for the first time revisited and reviewed.
- EPA Act of 2010 amended.
- National Resettlement Policy and Development Induced National Resettlement Act.
- National Plastic Policy in conjunction with the Consumer Protection Agency and
- A national sand Mining Policy.
The Ministry has set up an inter-ministerial Committee on water catchment and protected areas. The objective to plant 5 million trees under the National Tree Planting and Reforestation Project on 14,706 hectares will commence in June and run through to 2023. 1.5 million trees will be planted this year. The Minister highlighted a variety of benefits to be derived from the Tree Planting project.
However, the Minister acknowledged that his ministry was facing critical challenges among which are massive encroachment of water catchment areas, illegal logging, river pollution and wild bush fires. The Minister urged sierra Leoneans to change their mindsets because even though we are contributing less than 1% of Global emissions, there is still a lot of Environmental Degradation being carried out for selfish reasons. He noted that timber logging is the largest contributor to environmental degradation presently and informed the gathering that the ‘terri capos’ tree which is in high demand and expensive is a protected species in China and its cutting is illegal. Over 60,000 national guards protect this forest alone.
On the bright side, Sierra Leone is now qualified to receive Global Environment financing and is no longer among the 3 most disaster prone countries and observed that flooding has drastically reduced in the past 3 years. When asked if the Meteorological Department was now functioning, the Minister answered in the affirmative and confirmed that all the stations have been revived across the country with new ones being established.