Director of Climate change and meteorological services Dr. Lucy Mtilatila has bemoaned the limited funding allocated to the environmental sector which she says makes it difficult for Malawi to handle climate related pressures.
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Speaking during a media orientation on consultations on State of the environment and outlook report, she stated that although the idea is to see a greener environment, but the funding towards the sector makes it hard for the country to achieve the intended objectives to have sustainable environment.
The Met boss described the budget allocation of less than one percent to the sector as pathetic.
“When you look at other sectors even in the environment part, you find that even the budgeting itself, it’s going down. If you convert it to dollars, you realize that the funding from government on the natural resources is somehow going down, so it’s not really matching with the environment
“Even if you look at our policies sometimes, you find that they look at environment as others; we put development ahead and then you go to environment. It’ll be the others which is also making it very difficult for the environment to be healthy enough to handle the pressures that we’re getting from the development demands”
She cited the Mw2063 agenda where environment is not a pillar but an enabler placed at 7th position hence not given the attention it deserves.
Association of environmental journalists (AEJ) President Mathews Malata underscored the need for media to the part and parcel of the consultation processes related to the environment.
He applauded the Malawi Environmental protection authority (MEPA) and United Nations environment programme (UNEP) for opening up the space to work with the media.
“As you know awareness is very key, behavioural change is very key. Most of the environmental struggles that we’re dealing with today it’s just because some people need to be supplied with the information that can really help to change the way they think about the environment; the way they transact with the environment and also general perceptions on how we can begin to value our natural assets”.
While acknowledging the efforts by the media in raising environmental awareness, he indicated the need for improvement.
The journalist grouping is running the Forestry Accountability journalism where grants are been given out to reporters interested to investigate crimes in the forestry sector.
He indicated that some of these stories have been published and next month another dossier will be out.
