‘Engage traditional institutions for better climate’

From Fisayo Akinduro, Osogbo
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Government and relevant stakeholders in engineering and environmental sciences have been urged to engage traditional institutions in evolving better climates and habitable environments in the country.

The Aragbiji of Iragbiji, Oba Abdur-Rasheed Ayotunde Olabomi made the call while delivering an address as the guest speaker during a maiden conference of the Faculty of Engineering and Environmental Science of the University of Osun in Osogbo.

According to the monarch, he said if our world would be conducive, there was the need to address all the critical goals for environmental sustainability set out by the United Nations.

While emphasizing the need to proffer solutions to human activities causing climate change and its consequential effects, he posited that traditional institutions should be involved.

Speaking on the role of traditional institutions in environmental protection and climate change, the monarch stressed that there is much to learn from indigenous, traditional and community-based approaches to natural disaster preparedness.

He called for harmoniously beneficial relationship between scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge, adding that this “is desirable in developing countries where technology for prediction and modeling is least developed.”

In order to reverse the ugly trend of human negative activities and their effects on our environment, he recommended that we should go back to the use of organic household utensils as against metals, plastics and polypropylene products.

He also suggested that we should imbibe the culture of planting at least a tree in every household every year.