Environmental Debts

By: Mohammed Ahmed Al-Feelabi
Environmental Specialist

Five years ago, an environmental teacher stood among his students in a rural school and said to them: “Today we will start paying off environmental debts.”
When confusion appeared on their faces, he added: “The air we breathe is a gift that is an environmental debt that we must pay for. We will not pay it with money, as the environment only needs actions from us.
Today we can start doing something that contributes to purifying the atmosphere and adding more oxygen to the atmosphere.”
He distributed small pieces of paper to them and gave them a limited number of minutes to read them and circulate them among themselves.
He asked each of them to choose one of them to read to everyone.
The first clipping began by defining environmental debt as the sum of environmental impacts resulting from the depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation, and that it is a debt owed to future generations.
The clipping talked about the role of trees in moderating the atmosphere, and mentioned that we must restore our forests everywhere, although some people only see forests as trees that bring in money when they are transformed into logs, or fertile areas suitable for growing cash crops, but we realize that they are an integrated ecosystem whose negative effects of encroachment reach far distances that have nothing to do with political and geographical borders, and that combining tree planting with crops, or animal production, will not only prevent climate change, but will also create sources of income, as stated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The second clipping stated that the pure water you drink is an environmental debt, which we must repay by preserving this resource. This is because trees have a close relationship with rainfall, as if dense trees are asking Allah to provide them with water to remain alive and green. Hence, densely wooded cities, as well as oases, are in a state of continuous rainfall, so agricultural experts are keen to plant trees around the farms.
Regarding the role of trees in supporting the environment, the third clipping mentioned that the wood we use for construction, or for making furniture, or for providing energy is an environmental debt that can only be paid off by planting more trees. The fourth clipping talked about shade, the fifth about divine gifts represented by picturesque views, and the sixth about local tree species.
After circulating these clippings, each participant received three seedlings to plant one in the schoolyard, the second in his home, and the third in his home street.
The teacher announced that a committee of experts would monitor the growth of these trees, and that the school administration is committed to adding evaluation to the academic achievement result, because school is not just about reading and writing, but behavior above all.
I wonder what the result would be if every school, or one in every hundred schools, did such an act?