HOW TO END DESERTIFICATION IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

The Minister of Environment, John Odey has advocated for the cultivation of non-timber forest trees to combat the growing problems of desertification in the Northern belt of Nigeria.

The Minister gave this suggestion when he took briefs from the officials of the Forestry Unit of the Ministry in Abuja weekend. The brief was to enable the Minister appraise the scope of work of the Unit and the gravity of the problems of desertification in Nigeria.

Deforestation has been estimated to contribute not less than 20% to Climate Change globally and Nigeria ranks highest in Africa on the problem of deforestation.

At the current estimate, desert encroaches into the Nigerian landmass at the speed of 600 meters per annum thereby threatening the food base in the country.

The Minister told the officials that there is need to change the attitude of Nigerian towards the forest and this can only be done by integrating the needs of the Nigerian masses into the forest development plans.

“We need to work towards a policy on alternative energy use by Nigerians. We need to emphasise on non-timber forestry products. This is the only way we can make our forest management sustainable.

“We should also embark on campaigns for the people to start planting fuel woods for their domestic use in order to conserve our forest reserves. Once this is done, we would be able to have sustainable forest management system in place.”

The Ministry will embark on the development of model forest farms to encourage Nigerians into forest cultivation especially fuel woods which could be used as fire-woods in short spate of time.

He told the officials that time was running short in view of the speed with which desert encroaches Nigerian land. “600 meters annual desert encroachment is very high and given that a lot of food comes from the Northern part of the country, we must move fast. It is a serious challenge.

“Our first focal point in getting carbon credit is the conservation and regeneration of our forest.

“We must facilitate partnership and create platform for stakeholders’ partnership on key issues especially on renewable energy and environmentally friendly attitudes.”

The Minister stressed the need for a close collaboration between the Federal Government and the States on one hand and between the States and the local government councils on the other in the area of forest development.

The collaboration will also include educating Nigerians on the usefulness of solar and other environmentally friendly energy sources.