His Eminence Peter Cardinal Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical council of Justice and Peace at the Vatican, has bewailed the indiscriminate mining in Ghana, calling on Ghanaians to step up efforts to find solutions to this ailing problem.

Speaking at the 2015 Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) 2015 Founder’s Week Celebrations in Accra, Ghana on Friday, November 20, Cardinal Turkson called Ghanaians to champion the reviving of Arbor Day celebration in Schools with the aim of teaching the best practices of planting trees to save the ecology.

The mission of the GAAS is to encourage the creation, acquisition, dissemination and utilization of knowledge for national development through the promotion of learning.

Arbor Day, which is observed in many countries, is a day set aside to encourage individuals and groups to plant and care for trees as part of efforts to fight climate change. It is celebrated at the beginning of the raining season.

The Cardinal was delivering the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lecture on the topic: People and Planet: The (Moral) Imperative to Change Course (Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Integral Ecology).

He said due to climate change and global warming, there was the need to encourage the planting of trees to safeguard the earth and its natural resources.

Cardinal Turkson called on Stakeholders to establish a network to protect water bodies and the environment as it was done in Europe and America saying, “We are all actors to damages of the environment so we need to be part of the solution.”

He further said that the earth, which was like a mother to us, need to be respected and protected with a sense of dignity because human beings live and depend on it in all spheres and called for greater attention to the poor, the needy and the disadvantaged.

“What kind of world do we want to live to those who come after us,” Cardinal Turkson queried, adding that there was the need for the global authority to deal with environmental issues diligently.

He said there was also the need for change of lifestyles by avoiding the abuse of the environment and the indiscriminate felling of trees.

Dilating on the Pope’s Encyclical Laudato Si, the Cardinal said it has brought all persons and peoples into dialogue, all institutions and organizations that share this same concern for our common home.

Journalists in Ethiopia Urged to Promote Environmental Protection

The Catholic Church in Ethiopia has invited journalists to work toward the promotion of environmental protection in the spirit of Pope Francis’ message contained in the Encyclical Laudato Si.

The invitation was made during a one-day workshop organized by the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat (ECS) with journalists of secular media as the main beneficiaries.

Speaking at the event, Father Seyoum Fransua, ECS Deputy Secretary General, said that Laudato Si addresses not just the Catholic community but the people of the world.

“The Encyclical Letter reminds us all (of) the danger our common home is facing and where it is headed if we do not act as per the responsibility we are given by God to care for all creations,” Father Fransua said, adding, “As Journalists you have the responsibility to pass on this message to the people of Ethiopia through your reports.”

The workshop was facilitated by the Social Communications and Public Relations Department of the Secretariat with the aim to familiarize the media personnel with the Catholic Social teaching on environment.

The efforts so far taken by the Catholic Church in Ethiopia in protecting the environment and contributing to the green economy policy was acknowledged.

Laudato Si was presented to the participants chapter by chapter in Amharic and was discussed in the Ethiopian context.

The workshop was organized with the financial support of Church in Need.

CANAA