By Aisha Tamba
Ecobank Gambia Limited in partnership with the National Environment Agency and other key stakeholders on Saturday held a massive tree planting exercise in celebration of this year’s World Environment Day (WED), at Bakoteh dumpsite.
The theme for 2018 World Environment Day is “Beat Plastic Pollution”, urging government, industries, communities, and individuals to come together and explore sustainable alternatives and urgently reduce the production of plastic that are polluting our oceans, damaging marine life and threatening human health.
Dawda Badgie, DTSN-NEA, expressed delight in associating with accredited pan African Bank in the drive to green the Gambia by sponsoring the planting of over 400 trees around.
“The Gambia over the years experience high level of vegetation loss and it is everyone’s responsibility to fix because lack of tree affects our lives directly as humans, other fauna and flora that depend on the trees
“The importance of trees in our lives as human and the lives of other creatures cannot be overlooked. In that respect the NEA would take this opportunity to thank Ecobank for coming up with this good initiative of supporting our lives by planting trees to green our country the Gambia. Eco from environment point of view means “not harming the environment eco friendly” and this means you stood and live and your name not any making gains but sustaining,” he said.
Mr Badgie urged other institutions to emulate this venture to protect and preserve our planet earth for our own existence and other lives that depend on it either directly or indirectly.
The Managing Director of Ecobank Josephine Annan Ankomah, said sustainability is at the core of Ecobank’s mission and vision of building a word-class Pan-African bank that contributes to the integration and socio-economic development of the continent.
“We finally believe that long term success of development of economic, societies and environment that we operate in.
“Our focus is also very much on transforming the African banking landscape and providing convenient and cost effective financial products to our valued client.”
She furthered that a report on forest states that during the years from 2000 to 2013 forest landscape has dwindled each year by 70,0000 square kilometres globally and it is estimated that between 3.5 billion trees are cut down each year.
“Our pan African presence gives us many advantages but also imposes on us a large responsibility. Under our ‘planting today protecting tomorrow initiative, we at Ecobank are reaffirming our commitment to protecting mother earth by planting trees.
“We are truly backing our word and commitment with action. We will also be donating tools to KMC to be used to nurture and grow planted seedlings. This will demonstrate our commitment to combating climate change and protecting our natural resources,” she said.
She said Ecobank is also committed to taking bold steps to reduce the “carbon footprint of our operations and we do this by ensuring that our supply and procurement, building designs and energy usage are compatible with the acceptable emission standard set by the authorities in countries across the bank’s areas of operation.”
