Plateau Distributes 1m Tree Seedlings To Combat Deforestation

The Plateau Government yesterday said that it had distributed one million tree seedlings to  17 local government areas of  the state to combat deforestation.

Mrs Sarah Yusuf, Commissioner for Environment, who gave the figure at a ministerial briefing in Jos, said each of the 17 local government area received 40,000 seedlings.

Yusuf said that the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru, and the 3 Armoured Division of the Nigerian Army, received 100,000 seedlings each.

The commissioner said that the measure was imperative to fight deforestation and to ensure that certain trees did not become extinct in the state.

She said that open burning of waste, as well as clearing of farm lands for cultivation and felling of trees for timber, had intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming.

According to her, nature balances the flow of energy and nutrients while forests play a very vital role in these cycles like the carbon cycle where deforestation causes carbon dioxide to remain in the atmosphere.

Yusuf said that the destruction of the forests also caused climate modification of an area mostly leading to desertification and aridity.

She advised the public against indiscriminate felling of trees and that for every tree fell, two tree seedlings should be planted as plants emitted oxygen which was very essential to humans and animals.

The commissioner advised people to grow economic trees in their homes, adding that such trees served as sources of income, as well as acted as wind breakers during heavy wind storms.