Experts on forest conservation and climate change at the Nigeria Conservation Foundation have warned both the Federal and State governments to halt the destruction of the country’s forest so as to combat the negative effects of climate change currently ravaging the world.
They also appealed to the government to urgently find alternative means of cooking instead of using firewood, especially for people in the rural areas of the country.
Nigeria, according to the experts, currently ranks between 5th and 7th country in the world with the worst case of deforestation.
Speaking on Thursday in Ilorin at a Stakeholders’ Forest dialogue, the experts from the NCF, NESREAL and non-governmental organisations as well as the Kwara State Ministry of Environment, highlighted the gains of using the forest in sustainable manner, while also canvassing it as panacea for combating negative effects of climate change globally.
They also used the medium to showcase the gains of the re-greening efforts of the NCF in Pategi, a local government area in Kwara-North, while also calling attention to the rising temperature in the area on account of deforestation.
Speaking on this, Solomon Adefolu, Climate Change Lead, said that, “This is so bad that the effect are already here in Pategi,” explaining that temperature in the local government area is now constantly at 41 Degrees Celsius, which is way too high.
“It is so because there are no longer trees to cool the atmosphere; this will certainly tell on the health of people in that area,” Adefolu said.
Climate change, according to him, happens as a result of cutting down trees for various reasons like building, farming and even for producing charcoal for cooking.
He further highlighted that in Pategi, efforts of re-greening is part of a national programme that involves 17 states, including Kwara.
“The NCF’s work in the place covers three communities, Agboro, Latayi and Koro, where we have to plant 15,000 seedlings.”
Also, as part of discouraging lumbering, the NCF had taught the villagers to manufacture an alternative means of cooking with rice husks instead of using firewood adding, “We discovered that rice husks was in abundance and we recycled it into biocha or eco charcoal,” Adefolu said.
Speaking on this too, Mrs Abosede Buraimoh, the Kwara State Commissioner for Environment, said that she hopes and plans to mainstream the gains of the NCF in Pategi to all of the state, “especially with the biochar, we are collaborating to see how other urban areas can get steady supply of the cooking materials especially at this time when the cost of cooking gas is so high,” she said.
Also, speaking on efforts to re-green the state, Dr David Omotosho of Justice, Peace and Development Commission said that the Commission had planted over 16,000 trees in 85 communities in Kwara State, while Adesoni Akinwumi of the Forestry Department, University of Ilorin, said that the institution had planted Gmelina, Teak as well as other economic trees to regreen the environment and preserve the forest.
The experts, however, called on the government to provide an alternative means of using firewood for cooking especially for the people in the rural areas.
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