Some environment experts in the South-east zone of Nigeria have urged the federal government to expedite action in the implementation of the National Afforestation Programme (NAP) in the zone and the nationwide.
The experts, who made the call in a survey on NAP, expressed concern that non-implementation of the programme had seriously affected its objectives in the country.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Abia State, Mr Iheanyichukwu Ubani, said activities of “tree poachers” and inadequate manpower to enforce government’s forest laws posed “a major challenge to the government’s afforestation programme in the state”.
Ubani said the ministry was intensifying efforts to squarely address the issue.
According to him, the implementation of the Federal Government’s National Afforestation Programme was skewed in favour of a few states in the federation.
Ubani described the programme as laudable and good but noted that its implementation had threatened Federal Government’s objectives.
He underscored the need for the Federal Government to adopt a new and all inclusive approach to ensure an effective implementation of the programme nationwide.
“I advocate that the Federal Government adopts a more effective strategy to monitor the programmeimplementation to ensure its success in the overall national interest,’’ Ubani said.
The Permanent Secretary asserted that the state government initiated realistic measures to boost biodiversity through its tree planting programme.
Ubani said the government owned 19 forest reserves and had successfully raised a nursery with 10,000 seedlings of exotic and indigenous trees and shrubs.
He said the ministry had begun the distribution of the seedlings to communities across the state.
The perm sec affirmed that afforestation was vital to effective mitigation of the negative impact of indiscriminate tree felling and ozone layer depletion on the environment.
“We are determined to make Abia to become rich in biodiversity and we are not left out in the comity of states implementing the afforestation programme,” he said.
Ubani said the state government, in partnership with Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP), had conducted several public enlightenment seminars on the importance of tree planting.
He said the programme was focused on encouraging the public to appreciate the need to plant five trees to replace any tree felled.
South-East Coordinator of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Enugu State, Mr. James Eze said that a way of promoting afforestation and sustainable environment in the zone was by continuous planting of trees by residents.
Eze noted that negative developments and action leading to de-forestation within the zone had exposed the zone to lots of erosion, gullies and creation of “big gulfs’’ in some communities.
He, however, said that the zone did not have a coordinated plan to remediate the environment for now.
“It is left for individual residents and communities to have a plan of action and what should be accepted in their environment or neighbourhoods,” Eze said.
The coordinator appealed to residents in erosion prone communities to stop cutting down trees, rather they should plant more trees to check erosion and bind the soil together.
“At times, it threatens individuals directly by engulfing residential and public buildings and marketplaces.
“I appeal to traditional rulers, President-Generals, age-grades and youths in the South-East to champion the course of aggressive tree planting as well as introduce a community by-law to checking discriminate tree felling,” Eze said.
The NEMA head urged the Federal and state governments to provide affordable bio-fuel, eco-friendly stove and kitchen gas alternatives in all communities in the zone to forestall cutting of trees as firewood or charcoal.
Eze said donation and sensitisation on the use of eco-friendly stoves remained a sure way of aiding afforestation within the South-East.
The NEWMAP’s Social Livelihood Specialist in Enugu, Mrs Scholastica Ani, said that its programme on eco-friendly stove and positive environmental habits sensitisation were meant to promote afforestation.
