Orange SL Embarks On Tree Planting At Mudslide Site
Orange Sierra Leone, one of the leading Tele-Communications company in the country, in partnership with Youth Alliance and Initiative for Innovation and Environmental Development, has ended the Environment, Health and Safety Week by planting 3000 trees where the Mudslide occurred at Mogema Community in Regent, on 5th May, 2023. This is geared towards reducing flooding risk and land or mudslide susceptibility in Mogema and Freetown as a whole. The loss of these trees canopy has directly affected catchment areas for water reserves, exacerbating the risks of landslides, flooding, and coastal erosion, and the loss of tree and vegetation cover also threatens biodiversity.
Giving an overview of the week, the Public Relations Officer OSL, Mabel Mason, intimated that the week is set aside as part of their commitment towards preserving and ensuring that they protect the environment from climate change. She continued that the week was also set apart to raise the awareness among their staff members, stakeholders and the county, as a whole, about the impact of damaging the environment and how that can drastically affect their operations as humans. She highlighted that at the start of the week, they were taken through by an Environmental Protection Agency Representative on environmental health and safety, and a host of other engagements throughout the week.
‘’This is a call to action for all, as long as you are a human being. The environment does not need us to survive, to succeed, to continue, we need the environment on the contrary. We cannot survive without the environment, but the environment can survive without you.’’ She maintained, adding that everyone has the responsibility to preserve the environment, do things that will encourage the continuation of human existence, and how they must not burn trees, and how if they cut down one tree, they must ensure that they plant ten more trees. She furthered that they must ensure they dispose their refuse the right way, and advised that they must do all they can to preserve the environment, furthering that by doing so; they are also preserving their own lives.
National Olympic Committee President, Prince Sualley, commended the company for such a laudable venture, continuing that they must ensure to protect the environment to prevent natural disasters like the mudslide that occurred in August 14th, 2017. He stated that other companies or organizations should emulate such venture, stating how the environment needs to be preserved for human existence to continue.
Chief Lansana Kamara, the residual chief in the Mortomeh community, applauded the company for undertaking the tree planting exercise, and also lamented the death of the people who died in the mudslide
