Establishing Gender balance on issues of Climate Change within the entire district through the Council

The North East District Council has an Environmental Health Department which directly deals with issues of environmental protection and climate change. Under this department we have our very own locally acclaimed Landfill, which is a space reserved for various waste categorization methods that aim to avail safe and usable waste material that can be adopted by the female dominated 3R (Reduce, Re-use & Recycle) strategy groups e.g.: Vukwi VDC Female Accessory Club. In its Green Strategy mandate, the Council has strict regulations that ban the incineration of carbon emitting material at homesteads, of which failure to comply will result in a penalty charge of 10 (BWP) per certain amount of waste burned. To address this issue, the Council has an established waste incineration station that safely incinerates carbon emitting material at no cost to any member of the community. In addition the council found it fit to place waste collection points famously known as (Masakana a Matlakala) in all villages within the district as a way of motivating dwellers to be optimistic about conservation of the environment by limiting the congregation of harmful waste materials that pollute the environment and disturb the cycle of gaseous exchange in the atmosphere. The Council, together with its stakeholders (Gender Links and Gender Affairs), has taken a holistic approach in dealing with Climate Change through the use of preventative measures, provision of waste reclamation support, community mobilization and through implementation of set statutes in dealing with involvement of men and women in the fight against global warming. To ensure the safety of women and men who legally licensed to harvest Mophane Worms and firewood in our forests, the council has introduced environmental officers that safeguard the lives of persons in the field practising traditional self-sufficiency survival methods. However this type of allowance is only practiced in areas where issues of deforestation are limited. These officers also monitor and regulate the activity of illegal mining of river sands and gum trees, of which when found in possession of these environmental products, culprits are liable for strict penalties as per penal code under protection environmental resources and as also expressed in our Green Environment Strategy.

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