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Green is clean
If you are in the habit of chucking your litter about on the streets, don't do it in Tunisia - or Labib will
get you. Labib is a cartoon character, a long-eared desert fox with immaculately clean habits. You see him everywhere:
on posters, in the form of statues, on television, in newspapers and in dedicated magazines. Labib, which is a
diminutive from the Arabic meaning 'friend of the environment', is an amiable enough character until he sees litter.
On television, you see Labib swooping down to pick up a cigarette packet discarded by a truck driver and stuff
it into the astonished driver's mouth; or you see him collecting all the debris from a family picnic and emptying
it over the heads of the guilty parties.
"Labib stands no nonsense," says his creator, the Minister of Environment and Land Use, Mohamed Mehdi
Mlika. The Ministry's aggressive campaign to instill a clean-environment culture in the population initially upset
some people. "But look at Tunisia today," says Mlika proudly. Indeed, as French landscape photographer
Henri Malon told me: "I have travelled all over the Mediterranean region and I can honestly not think of a
country that is cleaner than Tunisia today."
Measured by any yardstick, the pace of Tunisia's 'green revolution' must be the most astonishing in the world.
Credit for this must go to the enthusiastic and pragmatic manner in which the government has tackled green issues.
"I have been passionate about the environment for as long as I can remember," says Mlika.
Mlika, who holds a doctorate in water treatment engineering, was attending the 1992 Rio Environmental Conference
as head of an environmental agency, when he was called and asked to take over the Arab world's first Environmental
Ministry which had been created one year earlier.
"I was given two basic briefs: protection of the environment and sustainable development," he recalls.
He was also given 4.5% of the budget, which is the highest allocation to environment in the world. Mlika galvanised
the new Ministry and turned its activities into an integral part of the development process. Environmental laws
have been incorporated into virtually all aspects of life.
"We took a unique and pragmatic approach," he says. "In Europe the emphasis is on legislation
and policing of the environment; in the developing world, environmental policies are derived from theories that
come from abroad. We had to find a way that would work for us."
Tunisia's way is to involve everybody, from the ordinary person in the street, to industrialists, to all other
ministries in policy formulation. The results have been spectacular. The country already has 55 sewage treatment
plants in operation and 30 more are under construction. Compare this to Morocco which has three times Tunisia's
population but only one treatment plant.
Not a drop of untreated sewage water reaches the sea in any Tunisian tourist area. By 2001, there will be 100
treatment plants. New technology to treat waste water was developed in Tunisia itself. The treated water is recycled
to irrigate the country's many golf courses, parks, roadside plantings, cotton fields and non-food crops.
"Information is vital," says Mlika. "We hold regular press conferences and keep informing the
public what our actions are all about."
Communication with the public takes the form of illustrated publications, cartoons, and television and radio
programmes geared for audiences ranging in age from infants, through primary and secondary schools, to university
level and adults.
"We also have three symbols which have been of great help in getting our message across at all levels,"
says Mlika. The symbols take the form of different coloured hands: 'blue hand' for water conservation; 'green hand'
for flora conservation and 'yellow hand' to manage deserts.
Part of the 'blue hand' strategy, for example, means that in water-short Tunisia, heavy users of water pay higher
rates as a means of discouraging them from wasteful consumption. The 'green hand' campaign, aimed at regenerating
deforested areas, provides alternatives, such as kerosene stoves and solar powered ovens, to reduce the demand
for fuel wood. Each year, schoolchildren and boy scouts plant thousands of trees on Arbor day to complement government
reforestation programmes in areas stripped bare by over grazing and environmentally harmful farming practices.
The reforestation target is 15% by 2005. The 'yellow hand' programme aims to halt and reverse desertification by
planting windbreaks, stabilising sand dunes and draining land that have become saline to make them arable again.
"The preservation and protection of our eco-systems is vital," says Mlika. "We have created a
number of beautiful national parks in the mountainous north and in the central region. You must visit Lake Ichkeul,
north of Tunis, which is a protected wetland. Millions of birds come to winter here and you can see dozens of endangered
flora and fauna species," he adds.
Above the Ministry of Environment is the National Committee on Environmental Development presided over by the
Prime Minister with Mlika as the Vice President. This body bring in all Ministries and other relevant bodies to
co-ordinate their activities within sound environmental and sustainable parameters.
"Environmental impact studies are compulsory for all sectors," says Mlika. "Even if you want
to put up an advertising hoarding, you have to carry out an impact study. This also applies to hotels, factories,
hospitals, the lot."
"We monitor pollution rigorously. If, say, a factory has pollution problems, we sit down with them and
work out solutions. Once we have worked out a remedial plan, the factory is expected to pay 30% of the costs, we
chip in 20% and the remaining 50% is raised through very low-interest bank credits," says Mlika.
Aesthetics and urban landscaping is very much part of the programme. "We have created 100 urban parks,
most of which used to be forests," says the Minister of Environment. "Today there are five sq metres
of green space for every urban dweller; our aim is 10 sq metres in the near future."
Tunisia's environmental policy is now regarded as the model for other countries in the region to follow. In
1996, the International Centre for Environmental Technologies was opened in Tunis. It is not only a scientific
research centre but also a training institution for personnel from African and southern Mediterranean countries.
Will Tunisia pass the European environmental regulatory test come 2008?
"With flying colours!" says Mohamed Mlika, and his pal Labib seems to nod in total agreement.
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