By Hassan Ibrahim Conteh
It is quite common to see coconut sellers with rickety wheelbarrows moving about the streets in the cities of Sierra Leone. This groups of sellers are sometimes seen standing at strategic points selling to customers some hard coconuts or jellies. In Sierra Leone, coconut fruits are consumed by people for a variety of purposes. But the environmental benefits and the economic importance of the coconut fruit remain a nightmare among Sierra Leoneans and other Africans.
To give credence to these findings, Alimamy Koroma, a coconut seller in Freetown, told Nightwatch that some consumers purchase the coconut water in order to cure themselves from malaria, a common disease in Africa caused by plasmodium parasites that infected people through bites from the female anopheles mosquito.
Alimamy narrated that the selling of coconut juice or its hard substance is mostly done in the morning and in late evenings when workers retire from their various workplaces. Bike and tricycle riders would always stop by at specific points buying coconut fruits from sellers, quenching their parched throats to relieve of boredom emanating from their stressful daily work. The coconut juice, many people believe, is good for anyone who may experience dizziness and it is mostly recommended by doctors as a first aid treatment for coma.
‘’The coconut water is consumed by many of my customers who sap the water to refresh their energy. Some people often meet us and buy it for their sickly people,’’ Alimamy explained while peeling out the husks at PZ.
He was holding a brandish cutlass as people darted toward his wheelbarrow with an avalanche of waste green coconut crammed in the cargo wheel.
The husks, he said, hasn’t any benefits for them the sellers so they are often thrown away by rubbish collectors.
“We often hire and pay the ones who throw the husks away for us,” Alimamy disclosed. He said they usually found it pretty difficult to find a place to dispose of the rubbish after selling. But, he said through the intervention of a woman who need the husks, they hardly bother after selling.
Shockingly, the coconut husk dealer never revealed to them why she had been collecting the coconut rubbish from them. Neither has she ever explained to them what coconut husks aren’t used for.
“The woman used to bring empty bags of rice to collect the husks. We don’t collect any single cent from her. In fact, she just reduced the burden from us throwing it [the husks] all the time,” he explained.
Alimamy hailed from Madina Loko in Bombali district, north of Sierra Leone. He told Nightwatch that he had once sat the country’s public exam, Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and he seemed determined to re-sit come next academic year 2021.
Coconut selling is a rather profitable business in Sierra Leone, but getting the product is sometimes a bit difficulty for buyers. Usually the buyers need to move from one direction to another in search of abundant coconut fruits to be harvested.
Painstakingly, in order to get plenty coconuts for sale, Alimamy and others would have to practically trek to places like Juba Hill in Freetown and Four Mile, a town which is almost 23 miles from the capital, Freetown
Globally, in some countries, coconut wastes (shells) are widely used to make ornamental objects in other countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, India and the like.
Sadly enough, in Sierra Leone, the shells from coconut fruits are only used to smoke fish or ignite fire, whereas, greenish coconut husks are ignorantly thrown out in Sierra Leone’s dumping sites and sometimes left unattended.
The economic importance of this product is widely seen in coconut-growing countries. Some countries produce charcoal out of coconut shell. The activated charcoal is produced from coconut shells which contain pure carbon supplement that causes less harm to the air, atmosphere and the environment.
Researchers claim that the activated charcoal is not the same substance as that found in charcoal bricks or burnt pieces of food. Making ‘activated charcoal’ involves heating carbon-rich materials such as wood, peat, coconut shells, or sawdust to very high temperatures.
The dried-shell is commonly used by the Hindus in India as a water-bowl of their smoking pipes. Some are skillfully carved into ornamental objects such as lamps, vases and tea -pot. Local craftsmanship has produced lots of domestically attractive articles made out of coconut shells and husks.
Local craftsmen have found out that coconut shell takes on a fine dark-brown to black shell, which enhances the attractiveness of articles made there from. Like in India, local craftsmen’s creativity is very popular among the Indians. Their decorative works such as goblets, flower vases are commonly sold in market places.
Despite its huge ornamental value, the importance of coconut’s green waste, environmentalists say, has a direct link to ‘green clean energy.’
The waste green coconut shells, researchers claim, have positive impacts on the environment especially when the world is increasingly threatened by global warming. The waste green shells have the potential to improve the world’s environment because such wastes can be decomposed by bacteria and other living organisms without any effects of pollution.
Some studies have also indicated the green waste could suitably be used in the production of gardening products. Some people around the world use the wastes to effectively produce quantities of biodegradable tubes for planting seedlings annually.
Some environmental scientists have proven that the annual use of the shells would surely reduce emissions rate. They believe that the annual use of the shells would decrease emissions between 10.2 t and 20.9 t CH4 (methane emission).
Methane is an important greenhouse gas but its presence in the atmosphere, which has rapidly doubled over the years, has posed serious risks to human existence. Its effects partially contribute to the existing changes in global weather patterns with records of earthquakes, floods, mudslides, tsunamis and pandemics.
Since the world is experiencing dramatic shift in weather patterns owing to global warming, there has been heighten talks keen on keeping clean energy safe for human beings and species around the globe.
In other to mitigate the effects of climate change around the world, the Paris Agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was enforced in 2016 in Le Bourget, near Paris, France.
The pact is part of the effort taken by global nations to prevent the dangerous warming of the Earth.
Under the agreement global temperatures should be brought well below 2degrees Celsius, which is the point at which climate change’s worst impacts can be minimised or prevented. Climate change, scientists say, includes both ‘global warming’ caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns.
The world is now calling for CLEAN ENERGY; global campaign for clean energy means energy produced with little or no environmental negative impact which doesn’t dispense greenhouse gases into the air that can contribute to global warming like the way fossil fuels do.
However, let’s talk of African craftsmanship on coconut wastes as they have also been manufacturing articles out of coconut shells. Although African industries are seriously underdeveloped owing to several factors, East Africans have a record of producing combs, ladles, bowls and stands and water-dippers made out of coconut shells. Ghana and South Africa are among the countries in Africa that have creatively explored the economic and social benefits of coconut wastes, unlike Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone’s indigenous industries are said to have stagnated owing to financial and other logistical support from the public and private sectors. Those who venture into the arts and crafts trade are considered as the less educated class, discouraging the young talents from entering the field. Cultural imperialism has seriously eaten the heart and soul of Sierra Leoneans. Western ornaments exhibited in fancy shops and on pavement stalls are rampantly seen in most corners of the cities.
Until Sierra Leone largely supports her craftwork industry and value its Local Content of indigenous production, creativity and innovation will always be abused by the intoxicating presence of Western commodities. And if we can’t create anything out of the coconut shells and husks, let’s safely preserve and use them as manure on our farms, minimising the use of harmful fertilisers on our soils.