The Church in Italy, through the Service for Charitable Interventions and 8xmille Funds, supports the rebirth of Creation and environmental care. Since 1991, 107 projects have been funded in 31 countries, with over 11.5 million euros earmarked to combat environmental degradation and safeguard ecosystems. The Pope invites us to “hope and act with Creation” to address climate change and its consequences on water, air, food and public health, which particularly affect the poorest and cause forced migration. In response, the Church promotes environmental education, tree planting, and ecological waste management.
CEI initiatives for the care of creation
Supporting the rebirth of the “groaning” Creation, contributing, as Pope Francis asks, to “move from the arrogance of those who want to dominate others and nature, reduced to an object to be manipulated, to the humility of those who care for others and for Creation”. This is what the Church does in Italy, through the Service for Charitable Interventions for the Development of Peoples and thanks to the 8xmille funds that citizens allocate to the Catholic Church. Since 1991, 107 projects have been financed aimed at combating environmental degradation, climate change and the protection of natural wealth and ecosystems in 31 countries, for a total of over 11.5 million euros. “Hope and act with Creation” is Pope Francis’ invitation for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, celebrated on September 1st. Hoping and acting with Creation means first of all joining forces “in responsibility for a human and integral ecology, the way of salvation for our common home and for us who live in it”.
The Threats of Climate Change
Climate change threatens water, air, food and energy systems, but also public health. There are over three and a half billion people living in regions that are highly sensitive to the devastation caused by the environmental crisis, which also causes forced migrations of families. Environmental degradation, then, causes wars and increases poverty. It is always the poor of the Earth who suffer most from air pollution, despite contributing less to the problem.
Operation “Wangarii Maathai” in Congo
We need to act urgently and together. “It is included in our five-year strategic plan for overall pastoral care, launched in 2022,” emphasizes Monsignor Fulgence Muteba, Archbishop of Lubumbashi and President of the Episcopal Conference of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “The priorities – he adds – revolve around environmental education, to Operation ‘Wangarii Maathai’ consisting in the planting of trees, the support of ecological conversion actions, the promotion of ecological wisdom already present in traditional culture, environmental sanitation initiatives and responsible waste management”. As also happens in the diocese of Rabbitwhere the poorest population suffers from problems of water supply and hygiene as well as poor management of domestic waste that makes the water and surrounding land unhealthy. Thanks to a project supported by the CEI and managed by the local Caritas, it was possible to train women and young people and start 24 agro-ecological businesses for the recycling, disposal and transformation of organic waste used in domestic crops to improve the agricultural yield of vegetable gardens and fields.
A different approach to environmental protection
Another approach, respectful of the environment, is therefore possible. This is demonstrated, for example, by the projects which, with the 8xmille funds, have allowed Local cooperatives in Northeast Brazil to strengthen innovative training networks for community agriculture and food chains. “We have worked – highlights nutritionist Clara Terko Takaki – on food sovereignty and security based on the Amazon biome and the seasons of the year, on the valorization of regional eating habits and the full use of these foods with fermented and dehydrated surpluses, especially cassava. In this way we can avoid waste, eliminate gases that increase the greenhouse effect, reduce hungerimprove immune defenses and generate income”. Specifically, the food supply chain project contributed to the training of about one hundred young people and to the improvement of the living conditions of the rural population of Santa Luzia and Limoeiro do Norte through the strengthening of training proposals in the agro-zootechnical field and the creation of a collaboration network between Brazilian training entities for a periodic exchange of knowledge, experiences, good practices and skills, to facilitate sustainable agricultural development of the rural areas involved.
Source: AgentSIR