The Environmental Health Officers Association of Nigeria (EHOAN), has called on
state and local governments to enact a law to check indiscriminate bush burning
and its devastating effect on the eco-system.

The association’s president,
Mr Nuhu Anyegwu, made the call in an interview with newsmen in Lokoja on
Monday.

Anyegwu stressed the need to
discourage public from bush burning by putting in place the necessary law that
would not only prohibit but prescribe sanctions against offenders.

According to him, bush burning
boosts the bulk of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with green house gasses
which research has shown contributes to global warming with diverse
consequences.

He attributed the recent
flooding experienced in some states across the country to climate change
arising from global warming.

The association president said
that if bush burning was allowed it could serve as a catalyst on other factors
to render the environment inhabitable.

He explained that bush burning
was capable of destroying economic trees, disrupt the eco- system and the
natural habitat of terrestrial animals, many of which were endangered species.

“It is of note that if the
forest is left fallow for four years without burning, soil fertility is
replenished as a result of constant shedding of leaves from trees which
decompose and form organic manure,” he said.

Anyegwu, who is also the
Chairman of Kogi Environmental Health Practices Monitoring Committee, called on
Environment Ministries, community leaders, health officers, forest guards and
other stakeholders to devise measures to check bush burning.

He urged other states to emulate Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti in the
South west which, through their leaders and community had succeeded in
prohibiting bush burning.