UN World Water Day 2018 – Wildlife Warrior Essay Competition
March 22nd saw the celebration world wide of UN World Water Day 2018. This year the theme was The Answer is in Nature – a principle with which we entirely agree! The concept explores how we can use nature to overcome the water challenges of the 21st century. Here in East Africa the problems of the world water crises are in evidence every single day, and affect both people and wildlife on a daily basis.
From the severe droughts experienced in recent years, to the heavy flooding in both remote and rural areas, the challenges run deep. Environmental damage, together with climate change, is driving the water-related crises we see around the world. Floods, drought and water pollution are all made worse by degraded vegetation, soil, rivers and lakes. When we neglect our ecosystems, we make it harder to provide everyone with the water we need to survive and thrive.
Nature-based solutions have the potential to solve many of our water challenges. We need to do so much more with ‘green’ infrastructure and harmonize it with ‘grey’ infrastructure wherever possible. Planting new forests, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, and restoring wetlands will rebalance the water cycle and improve human health and livelihoods.
These concepts are all ones we have explored this term with our Wildlife Warrior Clubs. During sessions in each school, our team has discussed the causes and impacts of flooding and drought, drought resilience and locally appropriate ways to manage and conserve water. At the end of each session, the children were set an essay relating to the theme, and given a few weeks to write and submit their entries.
We had some excellent entries from groups of children in Ura Gate Primary, Esiteti Primary and in Kachiuru Primary; we had individual entries from students in Mwaroni Primary and Esiteti Primary. The range of entries has been impressive and it has taken our team some time to work through all of them and choose ones which are worthy of special mention – so many of the essays were brilliantly written, demonstrating a remarkable grasp of the issues at hand. What was even more interesting was how much the children had understood and could discuss the issues and solutions relevant to their own local communities – ideas which we had hardly covered, but they were able to contribute from their own experience and ideas.
