BY CHIMA NWAFO
Last week Enviro Nigeria carried an interesting report of plans by oil giants, ENI and Shell, to embark on large scale reforestation by planting some 8.1 million hectares of trees in Mozambique, South Africa, Ghana and Zimbabwe. That sounds quite incredible. Two crude oil giants with an unenviable reputation in the Third World, including Nigeria where their activities are so suspect that Bayelsa State governor once accused them of engaging in “environmental terrorism.”
To confirm its authenticity, the report stated that the Chief Executive Officer of ENI, the Italian multinational oil corporation, Claudio Descalzi, has in the company’s strategy update on March 15, 2019, announced the objective “to achieve net zero emissions in our upstream business by 2030.”
On its part, Shell had earlier in the year launched a plan to reduce its “net carbon footprint by 2 per cent to 3 per cent.” According to them, the plan will include reforestation of forests, “with the company offering carbon credits to its customers so that they may offset their emissions.”
The issue of environmental degradation, industrial pollution and destruction of the biodiversity is not a recent development. One agrees in toto with the African groups that since the industrial revolution, fossil fuel industry has grown rich through the exploitation of people and nature, leading to large-scale and irreversible destruction of the atmosphere. “As such, ENI and Shell owe a colossal climate debt to those bearing the brunt of the impacts of climate change. At the same time, deforestation poses a grievous risk to people and the planet. If we are to stand any chance of halting the inter-related crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, fossil fuels and deforestation must both come to an end.”
But the truth is: For now, can we compel an end to the exploitation of fossil fuels? Even in the advanced economies, it still remains an estimate, with various deadlines based on advances in technology.
Perhaps, driven by the antecedents of the two European petroleum czars, their plans have met with cynicism and criticisms by some African environmental activists who generally rejected the scheme, variously describing it as: “Compensation for climate change”; “Green-washing gimmick” and “a dangerous tactic that could exacerbate the problems caused by fossil fuel exploitation.”
For strategic reasons, maybe, Ghana was chosen from the West African region. But some Nigerian actors were among the team of 109 groups of activists who signed the rejection statement. But yours truly would consider their action somehow as throwing away the baby and the bath-tube. No doubt, the environmental and corporate social responsibility performances of the two multinationals in Nigeria are unimpressive. But the unassailable truth about their recalcitrance can easily be unveiled from an Igbo proverb which states that a bird dancing by the wayside must be enjoying the drum-beat of someone inside the bush. Both companies are Joint Venture partners. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which has a very harsh and uncaring attitude to the wellbeing of host communities, is their landlord and senior partner. When top executives of Shell and other extractive industries lament the incidence of corruption in Nigeria, they are merely speaking in tongues. But that is a topic for another day.
Much as one welcomes the increasing concerns of activists on environmental issues, on this subject of “Tree Planting”, my submission is that we need the “trees” in the frontline Sahel zones of North-west and North-eastern states, among others. The problem of desert encroachment and drought is real and threatens the livelihood of millions of Nigerians, not only in the immediate environment but other parts of the country who consume agricultural produce from the region.
What, exactly, is desert encroachment? Experts define desert encroachment as the fragmentation, degradation and habitat destruction of desert land. The major causes are massive disturbances caused by people. It was more comprehensively captured by Temidayo Ebenezer Olanguju of the Ecology and Environmental Biology Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Ibadan, in his 2015 scholarly journal article where he posited:
“Drought and desertification are twin global environmental problems. Nigeria is faced with rapid desert encroachment affecting 15 northernmost states, from moderate to severe rate. Out of the 909,890 square kilometers of the country’s land area, about 580,841 square kilometers, accounting for 63.83 per cent of total land, is impinged on by desertification. Climatic variability and anthropogenic activities, such as deforestation, extensive cultivation, overgrazing, cultivation of marginal land, bush burning, fuel wood extraction, faulty irrigation system and urbanization are major causes of desertification.
“Drought and desertification impact directly or indirectly on all aspects of human life and the environment, including the ecological, health, geo-chemical, hydrological and socio-economic facets. Despite several efforts by the government to end desertification, the problem still persists due to the gap between the formation of policy and strategies of combating drought, and desertification. Drought and desertification can be remedied through integrated approaches such as awareness programmes, protection of marginal lands, tree planting, sustainable agricultural practices and use of alternative energy source.”
In an earlier article, one Yusuf Dingyadi, a freelance journalist, was wroth that “In spite of the fact that, we had several regimes in which northern people were the leaders, nothing was done to address the menace.”
He recalled that the tree planting programme of the President Olusegun Obasanjo regime was only a temporary measure which failed due to obvious socio-political and environmental factors. He said the tree planting programme initiated by the administration brought a temporary relief in curtailing desert encroachment. According to him, an estimated 5.7 million seedlings were distributed in 750 villages of the six most affected states; but that there were indications that not 25 per cent of the project succeeded in getting to the targeted areas due to “untimely death of the trees, neglect from agencies responsible, or destruction by animals.” He noted that statistics had shown that desert was encroaching at the rate of about 20 to 30 kilometers annually.
He identified the worst hit states then as Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa, Katsina and Zamfara due to their geographical location, adding that Sokoto and Kebbi states face the most devastating effect and stood the danger of being engulfed as “over 145 to 170 kilometres of their landmass may be lost to desert encroachment in 15-20 years’ time.”
Dingyadi’s worries about government’s indifference on the issue should be of interest to Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, APC/Kebbi South, who was a member of the team of Reps who, according to him, arranged the visitation to the North-west to have a first-hand information of the devastating impact of desert encroachment in the region.
Certainly, NNPC will no doubt agree that persuading its joint venture partners, Shell and ENI, to extend their tree planting/reforestation proposal to the North will benefit Nigerians, especially our northern brothers, much more than the billions of naira being thrown down the drain in the politics of searching for oil in the region.
*Nwafo, an Environmental Analyst, can be reached on: [email protected]; +2348029334754.
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