Give more attention to environmental issues - Christine Churcher

Accra, March 9, GNA - Ms Christine Churcher, Minister of Science and Environment on Wednesday urged Ghanaians to give more attention to environmental issues and create awareness of the need for a clean environment.

She said children, especially should be taught the need to maintain a clean environment to enable them educate their peers and parents about environmental sanity.

The Minister said these, when the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Arie Van Der Wiel paid a courtesy call on her to discuss the way forward for her Ministry.

Ms Churcher said her Ministry would work closely with the Ministry of Education and Sports to promote environmental issues in schools, especially in the pre-school children.

"There would be programmes to encourage children to pick up plastic waste wherever they see it, a child who is able to pick a lot of plastic waste would be rewarded," she said, adding, such programmes would help solve to an extent the menace of plastic waste in the country.

Ms Churcher said she would also do a lot of lobbying in parliament to push a lot of environmental policies that would help the country achieve environmental sanity.

She expressed the hope that her Ministry would carve a sharper image on the environment in the minds of all Ghanaians with support from the Netherlands government.

Mr Arie Van Der Wiel pledged his country's support for the Science and Environment Ministry and said his government would give 20 million euros to support the Ministry's work in the next four years.

The Netherlands government is also doing other programmes in terms of public education on the environment and wildlife preservation to help promote environmental issues in the country, the Ambassador said.