Alatening Community takes part in World Environment Day 2022 Celebrations with tree planting around the water catchment in Ngoh Quater, Alatening
The World Environment Day (WED) was established in 1972 by the United Nations at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment ( 5–16 June 1972) reported as the first international meeting on the environment and linking environmental protection and poverty alleviations; eventually leading to the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Environment Day was first held in 1974 under the team ‘Only One Planet’. Over the last 50 years, the WED has been a platform for bringing communities together to work together towards addressing specific global or local environmental challenges leading to transformative and impactful changes in communities.
The theme for the 2022, WED celebrations was ‘Only ONE PLANET’ focused on the need to live sustainably in harmony with nature. In the Northwest Region of Cameroon, decades of poor water catchment management, including significant planting of eucalyptus trees around water catchments has meant significant reductions in water availability for other uses including water provision for the gravity feed community water projects that are common in the North West Region.
As part of the World Environment Day Celebrations of 2022, the people of Alatening village in Santa sub division, North West Region Cameroon, reaffirmed their commitment for using nature based solutions for water catchment protection and to raise awareness on water use and sustainable development.
The Alatening Cultural and Development Association (ACDA), most recent past present, Mr Elvis SAMA leveraged the support from the Society for Initiatives in Rural Development and Environmental Protection (SIRDEP) (an indigenous NGO based in Bamenda Cameroon supporting agriculture & economic development, social development and natural resource management) to spend a day in Alatening providing education on sustainable water catchment management practices and also planting water friendly trees around one of the several catchments in Alatening. The activities were very well aligned with a key component of the Alatening Community Water Project related to water catchment protection and long term sustainability of the Community Water Project which is due to be commissioned in Q4 2022.
As part of the WED 2022, SIRDEP donated 100 to the people of Alatening and on the 7th of June 2022, dispatched their Environmental Specialists to Alatening to assist in the tree planting exercise and also training the people of Alatening on sustainable water catchment protection measures. A total of 3 tree types were donated by SIRDEP to Alatening, ie. mahogany, prunus Africana and acasia which are also of great economic value.
After planting, a discussion on the theme for the WED 2022, care for the trees planted and care for water catchment was conducted. During the discussion, community members asked questions and were clarified by the staff from SIRDEP. The community (through Pa John Che) was very grateful and requested for more trees to be donated given that Alatening has several water catchments. Nature based water catchment protection measures coupled with sustained community engagement and participation as was seen in Alatening on the 7 June 2022, provide the most sustainable approach for managing water resources and OUR ONE EARTH.
Of the 100 trees donated to the people of Alatening, those that were not planted on the day, were stored in a dedicated place within the catchment for planting on a later date to be decided by the community.
The Alatening Community sincerely thank SIRPED for the support received on the occasion of the WED 2022 celebrations but more importantly for the contribution SIRPED has made to helping it protecting its water catchment for the long term sustainability of the gravity fed schemes they have developed.
A video of the ceremony is available on our YOUTUBE CHANNEL – ALATENING TV (2) 2022 World Environment Day Celebrations in Alatening village, Santa Sub division, NWR, Cameroon – YouTube