NOT up to a month after the commemoration of the International Day of Forests on March 21, something bad happened in Jigawa State to underline the manifest truth that most of us are running away from. A 25-year-old man of Taura Local Government Area stabbed his brother to death over firewood – he went to his brother’s farmland and cut firewood without his consent. Just like in the other frontline states of northern Nigeria, deforestation is a central problem for Jigawa. Wood is a scarce resource and, as desertification and deforestation intensify, it may totally become unaffordable.
To me, the Jigawa firewood murder is a sign of things to come. We have been taking from Mother Earth without making conscious efforts to replenish her. Her plumage is getting thinner and she is now exposed to the harsh elements. The forest we once took for granted is vanishing at an alarming speed. There used to be natural forest cover everywhere you looked but we cut them down to erect our concrete jungles without replanting or renewing. Now that the trees are almost gone, we kill each other over the little green resources remaining.
It is instructive to note that during the International Day of Forest, our Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, lamented that Nigeria’s forest area has been on a continuous decline from 10 to less than eight per cent today, indicating that about 400,000 hectares of forest are lost yearly through human activities and other practices that are unsustainable. While stressing the need for the country to explore the social, cultural and economic values of forestry against the declining and unsustainably managed national forest resources, the minister announced that the national target is to achieve total forest cover from 10 to 25 per cent by 2022.
However, ours is a country where great-sounding ideas are proclaimed without any action to back up the good ideas on paper. While the minister announced a campaign to increase our forest cover, there was no corresponding national tree-planting project, as is done in other climes when such ambitious projections are made. The forests will not grow themselves. It is the citizens who will roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty in planting the trees that will eventually make the forest. If one made the calculation, we would also realise that it is an expensive venture. It must be planned well, calibrated and monitored, for it to add any reasonable environmental value. Who is going to buy the seedlings? Where is the nursery to nurture them? Whose responsibility is it to ensure they grow up to become forests?
Let us look at Ethiopia for instance. The country has seen the disastrous effects of deforestation first-hand with the country’s forest coverage declining from 35% to 4% in the last century. Those effects include declining rainfall, desertification, food insecurity, disease and climate migration. So, the Ethiopian government came up with the Green Legacy initiative whose aim is to turn their future around. The project took countless volunteers at 1,000 sites across the country. That was how in 2019 Ethiopia set the new record for most trees planted in a single day by planting over 350 million seedlings and young plants.
I am convinced that our government and political leaders are not creative enough to leverage the environmental sector for job creation and sustainable development. Therefore, what would have been an opportunity is now a major problem. There is an army of unengaged Nigerian youths waiting to become green volunteers if our leaders charted the course and showed the light. The forests are a major source of livelihood for those Nigerians in the rural area and the demands of the day makes everybody ignore the impact of deforestation on the environment. There are two things to blame: population and poverty.
Nigeria’s population has exploded in the last century, from 36.7 million in 1950 to 158.3 million in 2010, according to data from the United Nations. But job creation has not kept pace with the population increase, forcing people to choose between forests and their families. They cut the trees, poach the animals, sell the timber, burn the wood and never even think of planting them back. Today, there are countless people jostling for a handful of woods. So, what will prevent a conflict that now becomes inevitable, as manifested in Jigawa last week?
Secondly, the poverty rate in Nigeria, which is already high, only keeps rising. According to a 2022 report from the World Bank, 4 in 10 Nigerians – about 80 million people – were living in poverty in 2019, with the COVID-19 pandemic pushing another 5 million people below the poverty line by 2022. There are, therefore, no jobs to absorb those whose livelihoods had always come from the forest. In many rural areas, where we have these natural forest covers, there are very few things people can do to survive except hunt, farm or log the forests. So many communities are heavily dependent on the forest. And with access created by urbanisation, loggers and poachers can operate in the most remote villages – carting away timber and exposing our ecosystem. The margin of the poverty level is so high that anyone can sacrifice anything for food, including the forest. Sadly, the government on its part has no plans to create jobs and absorb those whose livelihoods had always come from the forest.
For those of us still in doubt or that do not have access to data and research, the unfortunate homicide at Jigawa should be enough to paint the real picture of tomorrow for us. Our trees are almost gone and a brother is ready to kill a fellow brother to protect the ones still standing in his backyard. Therefore, deforestation and desertification should be regarded as a national emergency. They are part of the causes of insecurity, inflation and food scarcity. We just need to wake up and connect the dots.
Let us note that tree-planting, which is reforestation, is one of the most effective ways to fight climate change. Indeed, it is known as the first defence line against climate change. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing our planet to heat up; trees absorb this carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into oxygen. Essentially, trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. Scientists have estimated that if a global tree-planting was initiated, two-thirds of the carbon dioxide emissions made by humans could be removed. The more the trees, the lower the temperatures and the cleaner the air. It is that simple.
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Forests in 2012. The day celebrates and raises awareness of the importance of all types of forests. On each IDF, countries are encouraged to undertake local, national and international efforts to organise activities involving forests and trees, such as tree-planting campaigns. The theme for 2022 is “Forests and sustainable production and consumption.” When we drink a glass of water, write in a notebook, take medicine for fever or build a house, we do not always make the connection with forests. And yet, these and many other aspects of our lives are linked to forests in one way or another.
Wood helps to provide bacteria-free food and water in many kitchens, build countless furniture and utensils, replace materials as harmful as plastic, create new fibres for our clothes and, through technology, be part of the fields of medicine or the space race. It is therefore vital to consume and produce wood in a more environmentally friendly way for our country and for the planet.
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