The Environment Protection Agency participated in the recently concluded National Forest and Climate Forum, organised by its supervisory ministry, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, at the Bintumani Auditorium in Aberdeen, Freetown
The forum attracted development partners, heads of embassies and missions, the media, school nature clubs, government ministries, departments and agencies, the private sector, and traditional leaders to discuss how we can collectively protect Sierra Leone for both its nature and its people.
In his opening statement, the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Jiwoh Emmanuel Abdulai, underscored the importance of natural resources and the urgent need to reimagine Sierra Leone as a place where development and nature can coexist, allowing both people and biodiversity to thrive.
The Vice-President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, launched the project titled “Protect Salone”, urging the deliberations and working sessions to yield results that will bolster existing conservation and biodiversity protection efforts, along with other sustainability initiatives.
As an agency, we supported technically focused presentations on current projects such as the development of plastic and climate legislation, the National Biodiversity Plan (NBSAP), the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0), and a learning session with pupils from our secondary school nature clubs on climate education and forest linkages.
These programmes are key to our mandate as the primary environmental regulatory agency and emphasise our national efforts to address the triple planetary crisis through our multilateral environmental agreements, in line with our EPA Transformation Strategy (EPATS).
In conclusion, the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, on behalf of the agency, presented the Environment Protection Agency Annual Report 2024 to the Vice President, highlighting programme implementations and providing a detailed report on the first year after the launch of EPATS.
