Professor of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry, Olukayode Bamgbose , has sought increased public awareness in the light of greater public education on need to halt unwarranted human footprints on the environment.
Bamgbose stated this while delivering the 84th Inaugural Lecture of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) , held at the school premises in Abeokuta on Friday.
The inaugural lecturer explained that there was need for the populace to fully understood the need to do away with indiscriminate ugly footprints on the environment.
Bamgbose, from Department of Environmental Management and Toxicology, spoke on the topic, “In the Footprints of the Environment: Every Contact Leaves a Trace on our Common Future”.
He called for a collective action in the fight for a healthier environment, aiming to significantly diminish the human footprint on earth.
The professor of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry stressed the imperative of acknowledging and addressing the escalating environmental impact caused by human activities.
He opined increased governmental funding for universities to sustain ongoing research on identifying and mitigating human impacts on the environment.
“Government must be alive to its responsibility of funding universities, so that there could be sustained research in the identification of man’s footprint on the environment.
“There is need to utilise the existing geopolitical zones as laboratory complexes with state-of-the-art equipment to fulfill the mandate of monitoring and understanding these impacts comprehensively.
“Government must also, as a necessity find a way to improve the economy of the country with a resolve to pass down the positive dividend of democracy to its citizens,” he said.
In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Babatunde Kehinde, stated that the lecture marked the second in the Department’s history and the 12th in the College of Environmental Resources Management.
Kehinde applauded the inaugural lecturers virtues, saying he remained a brilliant academician who stood by whatever cause he believed in.