Environment Day: ‘Youth initiative on environmental hazards needed’

GCUF observes walk to make international environment day.

FAISALABAD: “The youth have a responsibility to take initiatives to combat environmental hazards and create awareness of environment issues,” Government College University, Faisalabad, Vice Chancellor Zakir Hussain said on Wednesday.

Dr Hussain was peaking after leading a walk organised by the university’s Department of Environmental Sciences to mark the International Environment Day. This year theme is ‘think, eat and save’.

Scores of students and teachers walked from the Emerging Sciences Block to the H-Block.

Dr Hussain said that the students must keep themselves informed about the changes in the environment and the effects of pollution on the ozone layer. He said changes like higher temperatures, melting of glaciers, catastrophic floods and drought were serious threats to life on earth.

He said solutions could only be devised if people were well aware of the problem and their causes.

He said the forest cover in Pakistan was only around five per cent compared to the international standards of 25 per cent.

He stressed the need for increasing forestation to improve the environment.

Dr Hussain said that air and water pollution were responsible for outbreak of many diseases.

He said the rich countries must gear up their efforts to save the environments and support developing countries, too. He said a large fraction of wastewater was dumped untreated into the river and sea. He called for strengthening the mechanism to deal with the city waste.

The participants carried banners and posters with messages to save the environment.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2013.