Saving the planet for future generations is a crucial duty. This is what the Holy Father has just reminded us in his Exortation on preserving the earth, our common home. The problem is particularly acute in Nigeria, where our Sisters have been established since 1983.
In Ganye, in the state of Adamawa (in the east of the country, on the border with Cameroon), climate change is palpable: rising temperatures, worsening drought, changes in rainfall patterns. The first to be affected are the people living in rural areas who depend solely on subsistence farming.
An acceleration over the last three years
Over the last three years, farmers have all been forced to sow their seeds a second time, just after the sowing season, because the rains have stopped and the plants have dried out. And changes in rainfall patterns are always difficult to predict. So we all face a new challenge: learning to analyse annual rainfall patterns. All the more so as the impact of this situation on crop yields is significant, and leads to an increase in the cost of foodstuffs on the market, "as we have seen this year", says Sr Juliet.
What are the possible remedies?
Global warming is caused by a variety of factors: the indiscriminate felling of trees, carbon dioxide emissions, inadequate recycling and poor waste management. In some countries, efforts are being made to manage the number of cars on the road in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and to encourage the production of clean, green energy as an alternative to fossil fuels that pollute the environment. In Nigeria, "to curb the lingering effects of climate change, the federal government has regulated the cutting of trees for construction and cooking", Sr Juliet is delighted to report. Even more concretely, in her community in Ganye, she believes that "farmers will now have to select resilient crops and use water sparingly, if they want to be able to continue feeding their families and their livestock. For our part, we teach the pupils in our schools to respect the environment and to take care of the green plants that look after our planet by filtering toxic gases from the atmosphere, so that we can live in a healthy environment".
It's a responsibility we all have to take care of!
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