Our agenda is to give a human face to environmental issues; empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development; promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues; and advocate partnership which will ensure all nations and peoples enjoy a safer and more prosperous future. World Environment Day is a people's event with colourful activities such as street rallies, bicycle parades, green concerts, essays and poster competitions in schools, land/seascape painting tours and art exhibitions, tree planting, as well as recycling and clean-up campaigns.

Painting tour takes artists to the Niger Delta

By Victor Asowata

A new concept, entitled Nigerian Painting Tour (NPT), has just been born. NPT is a biodiversity conservation project directed towards certain environmental concerns, through art. It is created by Femi Babawande, a painter and cartoonist.

Environmental issues have been a source of concern to those who care and are moved to take action on the diverse mind-boggling devastation that had bedeviled this beautiful, huge globe called earth. The devastation range from natural disaster to man made destructive elements.The main thrust of the NPT project is multi-dimensional, but targeted towards a common direction.

First, it is a diverse conservation concept geared towards celebrating and promoting the amazing Nigerian landscapes in paintings and drawings. That is, it shall bring together “a team of wildlife and landscape painters to undertake tours of the country and document what they see,” says Femi Babawande.

Second, is to create awareness on these environmental issues thereby redirecting the attention of policy makers and other stakeholders towards addressing the problems.

And third, is massive campaign to preserve the habitat world of animals, with special focus on endangered species.Basically, the uniqueness of the NPT project can be deduced from clarity of redefining or refocusing the visual art form, painting precisely, at solving various environmental problems.Given as a focal point, “Art as an environmental policy,” the NPT project through this policy would give answers to certain environmental questions that bother on the atmosphere viz: How effective is the goal of reducing emissions? Will its effectiveness be eroded overtime? Will the policy have wider environment effects, such as improved local air quality etc?Art as form in itself is problem-solving. As it has been in historical times, art is the vehicle through which the socio-economic, cultural, political and psychological values of a people are advanced. Also, it is a mirror that is ever present for a generation to look into, conceptualise their destiny and move it forward.This is the inherent character the NPT project, which will be propagated as a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Now, this is an important arrangement to be considered vis-à-vis the emerging currents of Nigerian contemporary art. Though the NPT project has a global view, it is appropriate to highlight its relevance to Nigerian art.Over the years, very few artists (painters) have devoted very little of their practice to the promotion of wildlife conservation as compared with artists in Europe, America, etc. It is only Dr. David Dale, one of Nigeria’s most prolific experimental artists, and a few others who work extensively on the subject of wildlife conservation.At present, there are no specialised wildlife painters that may be looked upon to help propagate this course.Sometime ago, a Canadian artist, Isabelle Fousher, who specialised in painting birds of all kinds in her World of Amazing Birds, an exhibition she brought to Nigeria in 2002 under the auspices of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), saw a presentation of bird painting in fabulous relations and colours. Isabelle’s subject area seemed inexhaustible.Indeed, issues on the environment and conservation are very broad. The NPT project, if properly articulated, will encourage specialised endeavours in painting subjects that bother on environment and wildlife, which may be considered as one of the potent experiences in the collective fight against the issues at hand.

In its maiden edition therefore, the NPT project is focusing on the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, which consists of Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Abia and Imo states. The project is in line with the United Nations 2004 theme on the environment “Wanted! Seas and Oceans – Dead or Alive?” and subtitled “The Niger-Delta in the Eyes of an Artist”.As a creative concept, contributions in paintings and drawings of rain forest and mangroves of the Niger Delta are expected from interested participants, via a tour programme that will cover Asaba, Port Harcourt and Bonny Island, scheduled between June 5 and June 19 this year.

Finally, in support of the World Environmental Day 2004, commemorated each year on June 5, the NPT is helping to stimulate and increase awareness on the environment.