THE NEXT BIG THING: DARING THE WORLD TO SAVE THE PLANET

As the largest environmental event in history, Earth Hour today , February 14, launched its 2012 campaign “I Will If You Will” to showcase how everyone has the power to change the world they live in.

For the first time, Earth Hour, being held on 31 March, is taking a giant leap from its annual lights out event to offer a further opportunity for its communities to be part of the world’s environmental solution.

Earth Hour began as a one city initiative in 2007, and has since grown to be a 5,251 city strong global movement, reaching 1.8 billion people in 135 countries across all seven continents.

The “I Will If You Will” digital platform created by global ad agency Leo Burnett, is the result of a collaboration with YouTube, therefore bringing together the world’s biggest social video platform with the ‘world’s largest action for the environment’.

The “I Will If You Will” campaign uses the YouTube video platform to empower people to share a personal dare with the world by asking, “What are you willing to do to save the planet?”

Earth Hour Co-Founder and Executive Director, Andy Ridley says “I Will If You Will” is the obvious next stage in the environmental campaign’s evolution.

“I Will If You Will gives every individual the opportunity to inspire their friends, colleagues and neighbours to take sustainability actions not just on the hour but beyond the hour,” said Ridley.

The concept of “I Will If You Will” centres around providing a social contract for two parties – connecting one person, business or organisation to a promise and their friends, family, customers or members to a challenge – uniting them behind the common goal of creating a positive environmental outcome.

The Earth Hour YouTube platform hosts a global library of “I Will If You Will” challenges, and encourages people to share their “dare” publically through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email. Friends can be invited to participate and accept each challenge using these popular social networks.

The simple promise can range from recycling, to switching to energy efficient light bulbs, turning off your mobile charger, or signing up for paperless banking.

Earth Hour in Nigeria has the support of First City Monument Bank Plc,The Abuja Environmental Protection Board, The Lagos Environmental Protection Agency, The Federal Road Safety Commission, The Peace Corps of Nigeria, The Nigeria Television Authority, Zakudia Lounge, Lead British International School, Abuja Capital International College, Capville Schools, Best International School, Nature Cares, Nigerian Youth Climate Change Coalition and many more.

Earth Hour Global has already received I Will If You Will challenges from a number of corporate companies and community groups, including, CBRE and children’s character Pocoyo.

Earth Hour 2012 will take place at 8.30pm – 9.30pm on Saturday 31 March

**Interviews are available with Andy Ridley, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Earth Hour**

Visit the Earth Hour YouTube platform here

View Images here

Media Contact:

Rebecca George, Earth Hour Global, Rebecca@earthhour.org +61 421 988 035

Benjamin Vozzo, Earth Hour Global, Benjamin@earthhour.org +61 415 194 219

"This is an Official Press Release from Earth Hour Global"

FORESTS AND ITS SERVICE TO NIGERIA AND NIGERIANS

Forest is a plant community, predominantly of trees or other woody vegetation, occupying an extensive area of land. In its natural state, a forest remains in a relatively fixed, self - regulated condition over a long period of time.

In Nigeria, we have two predominant classes of forest, which is the Tropical Savannas of the Northern Nigeria, which are dominated by grasses and sedges, with open stands of widely spaced trees that are frequently thorny; and we have the Tropical rain forests which are characteristics of the Southern Nigeria, plant growth is quite profuse here, and because the metamorphosis of leaves occur gradually throughout each year, the forest is always active.

Forests cover only about 12% in 2005 of the country's total land area, but has shrank into 9.9% in 2010. Deforestation, which is the illegal cutting down of trees has become a major problem, made worse by massive rural-urban migration, and construction works. Other environmental threats include settlement within forest reserved areas, bushfires, increasing demand for fuelwood and timber, road expansion and oil extraction activities.

Perhaps, it should be known that the livelihoods of 80% of the Nigerian population depends on forests, and it provides home to more than 15% people in Nigeria, and even serve as a home to 60% of terrestrial biodiversity.We are quite sure that Nigeria has a wonderful share of the $379 billion total global trade in forest products in 2005.Forests, at large helps in the cycle of carbon usage by which energy flows through Earth's ecosystem

Nigeria has an organized system of nature preserves, game reserves, and national parks in addition to a forest management system, but most management is carried on at the state level where cases of malpractices and mismanagement of funds are gross, especially with the introduction of ecological funds .Law enforcement and protected system infrastructure are lacking, and abuses of protected land are common. The country also participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Several Nigerian groups have campaigned actively, but with little success, to compel the government and major oil companies to introduce environmental safeguards. In 1988 the government created the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) to address problems of desertification, oil pollution, and land degradation, but the FEPA has had only a minor impact

Forest is a plant community, predominantly of trees or other woody vegetation, occupyin an extensive area of land. In its natural state, a forest remains in a relatively fixed, self - regulated codition over a long period of time.

In Nigeria, we have two predominant classes of forest, which is the Tropical Savannas of the Northern Nigeria, which are dominated by grasses and sedges, with open stands of widely spaced trees that are frequently thorny; and we have the Tropical rain forests which are characteristics of the Southern Nigeria, plant growth is quite profuse here, and because the metamorphosis of leaves occur gradually throughout each year, the forest is always active.

Forests cover only about 12% in 2005 of the country's total land area, but has shrank into 9.9% in 2010. Deforestation, which is the illegal cutting down of trees has become a major problem, made worse by massive rural-urban migration, and construction works. Other environmental threats include settlement within forest reserved areas, bushfires, increasing demand for fuelwood and timber, road expansion and oil extraction activities.

Perhaps, it should be known that the livelihoods of 80% of the Nigerian population depends on forests, and it provides home to more than 15% people in Nigeria, and even serve as a home to 60% of terrestrial biodiversity.We are quite sure that Nigeria has a wonderful share of the $379 billion total global trade in forest products in 2005.Forests, at large helps in the cycle of carbon usage by which energy flows through Earth's ecosystem

Nigeria has an organized system of nature preserves, game reserves, and national parks in addition to a forest management system, but most management is carried on at the state level where cases of malpractices and mismanagement of funds are gross, especially with the introduction of ecological funds .Law enforcement and protected system infrastructure are lacking, and abuses of protected land are common. The country also participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Several Nigerian groups have campaigned actively, but with little success, to compel the government and major oil companies to introduce environmental safeguards. In 1988 the government created the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) to address problems of desertification, oil pollution, and land degradation, but the FEPA has had only a minor impact.

With the inception of the internet and youth organizations, the future looks brighter than what it has used to be; we have organizations, volunteers, climate change advocators and social entrepreneurs, now collaborating to make the environment sustainable, we only hope that all levels of government in Nigeria will join hands with this new formations to at least kickstart a new path to a sustainable environment.

THE WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2011 IN NIGERIA

The World Environment Day (WED) was established by the United Nations

General Assembly to mark the opening of the 1972 Stockholm Conference

on the Human Environment.Celebrating WED is about the inspirational power of individual actions that collectively become an exponential force for positive change.

WED is celebrated around the world in many ways, including street rallies,

bicycle parades, green concerts, essay and poster competitions in schools,

tree planting, recycling efforts, clean-up campaigns and much more.

In Nigeria, WED will be celebrated by hiking the hills of Gwarinpa, in Abuja and organizing a climate change workshop on the hills of Gwarinpa on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 9am and on Sunday, June 5, 2011 we will be having an Arts and Crafts exhibition at Dreemi, Plot 75, 1st Avenue, Gwarinpa, Abuja by 3pm with the theme: Forests, Service to Nature. No thanks to the Nigeria Youth Climate Change Coalition and Greenback Nigeria that is putting this together to create awareness about environmental sustainability and issues surrounding Climate Change.

However, as the Environment becomes the biggest threat to all other Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), it will be of much concern to create more awareness on environmental sustainability, in essence, Nigeria's natural resources, which as become its valuable assets are seriously threatened, mostly by anthropogenic causes. Grim statistics from the Nigeria MDG report for 2010 showed that between 2000 and 2010, the area of forest shrank by a third, from 14.4% to 9.9% of the land area; little progess was made up to 2005 in providing access to safe water and accessing improved sanitation.

Moreover, Nigeria remains acutely vulnerable to climate change and its impacts in each ecological zone will be different. But, if well managed, measures to deal with the effects of climate change which include creating awareness, building eco-friendly communities, encouraging eco-friendly products, and enforcing environmental degradation laws provide important opportunities for ensuring more sustainable progress.