The National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, is carving a niche for itself in the area of innovation to making the people practically engage with the Museum goal in preserving, promoting and protecting the reversed history of Nigeria, for future generation to see and appreciate.
This time around, the museum organised the maiden edition of ‘Our Collections Matter’ programme-ICCROM with the theme: ‘Achieving Sustainable Development Goals, Climate Action, using our collections.’
Doing justice to the theme of the event, the Curator of the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, Mrs Pamela Oriyomi and the coordinator of the ICCROM, Mrs Alagbe Christiana, rallied resource persons from different fields to effectively educate and engage not only the adults but also the youth and young at heart on climate change issue.
Among the resource persons were Dr Olumuyiwa Akande from the University of Ibadan, who was represented by Mathias Francis and Mr Ogunmola Nathaniel while the audience were corps members in Ibadan and students of different secondary schools as well as others drawn from different walks of life.
Speaking on the sustainable approaches to museum practices, Dr Akande said climate change has continued to be relevant in academic discuss and other spheres of life, and that it should be noted that Africa contributes less than four percent of the entire world’s climate degradation. This implies that museums in Nigeria have been doing something less conventional.
The less conventional practices could be said to have also contributed to carbon emission to the climate.
“Moving from national grid to solar-powered energy for use in museums will also help reduce the effect of climate change on the environment. It is important to plant trees as individuals and as a collective effort and employ reusable materials as against indestructible materials like plastics,” Dr Akande said.
In his interactive presentation, the second lecturer, Mr Rotimi Olaoluwa, took the audience on environmental management system awareness and how it can be people-driven and operational.
According to Mr Olaoluwa “For environmental management systems to work effectively, organisations need to develop an implementation plan that covers education on the contents of the standard, determine position with regards to the environment and the requirements of ISO 14001, analyse the shortcomings and close the gaps.
“Others include a timeline of the implementation steps based on the gap analysis, time to run the environmental management system, collect records and make improvements before registration audit.”
He added “It is an Environmental Management System (EMS) that uses a continual improvement approach in achieving and demonstrating sound environmental performance.
“The goal is for organisations to control the impacts that their activities, products and services have on the environment. ISO 14000 is the standard, and ISO 14001 is the document containing the requirements.”
Speaking at the event, the curator of National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, Mrs Oriyomi said “Our collections matter organised by the International Centre for the Preservation of Cultural Property in collaboration with NCMN, is to educate and engage all and sundry on how to mitigate problem of climate change.
“The aim of this programme is to amplify activities that support sustainable development through the use, development and conservation of heritage.”
“The museum, as an institution, engages in promoting the sustainable development goals by upholding and promoting our cultural values, using its collections to educate, enlighten, promote diversity and sustainability as well as foster peace and unity.
Climate Action Goal 13 is one of the sustainable development goals with climate change having negative impact as a result of increased temperature, rainfall, heat wave on human, plants, animals, heritage, sites, monuments and collections that can result in loss of our cultural heritage, identity and the human race, if nothing is done.
Today, The Museum is taking that giant stride, as we gather here to create awareness and educate ourselves on climate change, mitigation, adaption and how sustainable Development Goals can be achieved using our collections and the various steps we can take to contribute t the reduction of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, in Museums, Organizations, Homes and Industries.
“It is expedients to say that we should all work as a nexus including the legislative arm, to achieve the sustainable development goals by year 2030.”
in her remarks the Convener of the event, Mrs Alagbe, who see everyone at the programme as a single purpose of achieving sustainable development goals, climate action using our collections, said “Our collections are our rich cultural values, with it, we can achieve anything if we are determined. The sustainable development goal is one of such achievable actions and that is why we are here today.
“There are 17 of such goals of which museum has been caring out some of them including educating the public, poverty alleviation through skills acquisition, sustainable cities and communities through our cultural heritage preservation among other.
“Today we are looking at climate change which is affecting our Planet including plants, animals, monument and collections. How does our collection relate with climate change? Before the advent of technology. what did our forefathers used? What are the causes of climate change? How can we mitigate and adapt to it?”
She, however advocated that various cultural and non- cultural organizations; museum local government, corps members and individuals to here from experts and at the end the exercise, everyone should be able to replicate same in our various Organizations, Industries museums and homes.
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