Curbing Desertification Via Great Green Wall Programme

President Goodluck Jonathan recently approved the immediate implementation of the Great Green Wall (GGW) Environmental Programme.

The programme is part of measures adopted by the Federal Executive Council to combat desert encroachment in Nigeria, particularly in the northern part of the country.

The GGW programme aims at planting more than 1,500 new trees from Maiduguri (Borno) to Birnin-Kebbi (Kebbi State), a distance of more than 1, 000 kilometres.

The Minister of Environment, Mrs Hadiza Mailafia, says that the programme will be implemented in the 11 frontline states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa, Yobe and Zamfara.

“The whole concept is that there should be a green area that will run across the 11 frontline states. These are the states that face the desert directly or bear the direct impact; they are the shock absorbers of the desert, they first feel it before we do,” she says.

Mailafia says that under the programme, Borno, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara states, which are most adversely affected, will have a contiguous Green Belt, while the remaining three states of Adamawa, Bauchi and Gombe will have support Green Belts.

She says the contiguous belt, which will be 15 kilometres wide, will run from Kebbi to Borno, covering a distance of 1,500 kilometres.

She expatiates that the programme is based on cross-sectoral interventions that will ensure ecosystem restoration, while enhancing food security for sustainable development.

To guarantee its effective implementation, the minister says that the programme will be jointly funded by stakeholders, the three tiers of government, development partners, the private sector and civil society organisations on mutually agreed terms.

Mailafia says that the programme will also be supervised by the National Council on Shelterbelt and Afforestation.

Membership of the Council, she adds, will include the Vice-President, who will be the chairman, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), and seven ministers in charge of the line ministries.

The minister stresses that a programme implementation unit will also be set up within the Federal Ministry of Environment to coordinate the project’s execution.

Observers note that the GGW Programme will boost efforts to tackle the growing menace of deforestation and desertification in the country

The environmental problem is considered as very severe, while concerned environmentalists lament that the world’s forest cover has shrunk considerably due to factors such as urbanisation and industrialisation.

They note that by 1950, over 100 million hectares of the world’s forests had been cleared for industrial purposes, recalling that at that point in time, the forests covered about a quarter of the world’s land mass.

The experts say that less than 25 years later, more than 200 million hectares of the world’s forests had been destroyed to meet the growing needs of the increasing population.

They affirm that the situation continued to degenerate, saying that by 2000, between 600 and 700 million hectares of the world’s forest reserves had disappeared because of the increase in unsustainable use of forest resources worldwide.

The situation now appears calamitous, as the world’s forests — coniferous, temperate and tropical forests — are all under serious threat, and experts maintain that the destruction of tropical forests is the one which is currently having the greatest impact.

This is because tropical forests play critical roles in regulating the global climate, they add.

Climatologists stress that tropical forests help in maintaining the balance of gases in the atmosphere by producing a vast quantity of oxygen and using up a vast quantity of carbon dioxide.

The forests are also described by environmentalists as a “storehouse of genetic diversity’’ that provides a wide array of goods and materials for human and industrial uses.

Available statistics indicate that even though tropical forests cover only about 6 per cent of the total land surface of the earth, they are home to more than half of all species of life on the planet.

A report of the World Resource Institute confirms the gravity of the situation, putting the annual rate of tropical deforestation at between 16.4 million and 20.4 million hectares worldwide, more than the 11.4 million hectares estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA).

The most worrying aspect of the study, according to concerned experts, is that Nigeria is losing more than 350,000 sq. km of its forest landmass each year.

Observers stress that the negative impact of deforestation and desertification has started taking its toll on the lives of humans, animals and plants in the 11 frontline states of Nigeria.

Available records indicate that the survival of more than 5 million livestock in Yobe is under serious threat due to the dearth of pastures occasioned by seasonal droughts.

The situation is akin to what obtains in states like Borno, Katsina, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto and in the northern part of Bauchi State.

Records show that Bauchi State alone is losing an average of one kilometre of its landmass annually to desert encroachment, particularly in its northern axis.

The state government has attributed the ugly trend to indiscriminate felling of trees for fuel and charcoal business.

The government bemoans the activities of a particular syndicate which specialises in the indiscriminate felling of trees, stressing that the trend has seriously exposed the state to the dangers of desert encroachment.

It, nonetheless, warns that it will no longer condone the activities of some unscrupulous elements that endanger the natural eco-system of the state.

To reverse the trend, the Bauchi State Government has set up a high-powered committee to check the menace.

The committee comprises traditional rulers, police, security agencies, ministries of agriculture and local government affairs

To further strengthen efforts to curtail deforestation, the state government recently approved the purchase of more than 10,000 kerosene stoves for distribution to various households to mitigate the overdependence on firewood for cooking.

The government says that the stoves have been distributed to households in the northern part of the state where the menace of deforestation and desertification is more pronounced.

To take the fight against desertification to the grassroots, the government says it has also enacted an edict outlawing indiscriminate felling of trees across the 20 local government areas of the state.

In Yobe State, the livestock is under a serious threat due to the absence of pastures occasioned by seasonal droughts, while some farmers have lost their ancestral farmlands to sand dunes.

Records also indicate that the growing menace of desertification has also affected the source of livelihoods of over one million people in the state.

The development explains the rationale behind the proposal of federal legislators from Yobe State calling for the establishment of a Desertification Control Commission to proffer sustainable solutions to desertification, which is widely described by scientists as the ‘’world’s most cancerous earth disease’’.

“The scourge is beyond what the state government can handle, so our legislators have to team up with their colleagues from other states affected by desertification to press for the establishment of the commission,’’ says Bunu Akali, a resident of the state.

“The establishment of the commission remains the most assured means to effectively combat the environmental problem and this is a collective challenge to our legislators.

“Threats by desertification have grossly reduced farming activities across the state; posing threat to food security.

“We call on our new legislators in the National Assembly to team up with their older colleagues and work for the establishment of the commission in the interest of our people,’’ Akali adds.

Expressing similar worries, the Kebbi State Government claims that the state has so far lost 21 of its forest reserves to desert encroachment.

Mr Ishaku Daudu, the state’s Commissioner for Environment, nonetheless, notes that the government is striving to recover the lost forest reserves.

He laments that out of the 22 forest reserves in the state, only one is currently viable, adding: “We will, however, recover the reserves, as part of our efforts to reduce the menace of desertification.”

Daudu, however, notes that two million tree seedlings have been distributed free to the people for planting, as part of the government’s desert-control measures.

Besides, the commissioner says that 25,000 economic trees will also be distributed to across the state to encourage the establishment of orchards, adding that 200 forestry officials will be engaged to handle the state’s afforestation project.

“We have earmarked N1.9 million for an enlightenment campaign to discourage people from cutting down trees,” he says.

Moreover, Daudu says that the formation of environment clubs in schools and local government areas will also be encouraged.

In Kano State, the state Afforestation Programme says that it will rehabilitate the existing 50-km-shelter belt, as part of renewed efforts to tackle the menace of desertification in the state.

To actualise the initiative,  the programme’s Project Manager, Alhaji Maitama Danbatta, says that one million seedlings will be planted across the desert-prone areas of the state this year alone.

“We decided to produce this number of seedlings in order to check the menace of desertification, particularly in the affected areas.

“The seedlings will be produced in eight designated nursery centres across the state.

“The nursery centres are located in Danbatta, Bichi, Gaya, Karaye, Bunkure, Dawakin Kudu and Takai Local Government Areas, as well as at the Project Monitoring Unit in Kano,’’ he adds.

Disturbed by the growing menace of desertification, Vice-President Namadi Sambo recently directed the Federal Ministry of Environment to produce a roadmap on how to tackle the challenges of desertification and deforestation in the country.

Sambo gave the directive in the State House, Abuja, at a recent meeting convened to discuss the issue.

He said that the roadmap is in line with the decisions of the recent Conference of Heads of State of ECOWAS in Chad.

Sambo recalled that the conference agreed that ECOWAS member countries should undertake a massive plantation of trees to save the sub-region from desertification and deforestation.

He said that a meeting with state governors would soon be organised to get the governors actively involved in the programme aimed at controlling desertification and deforestation in the country.

Environmentalists, however, insist that for the Great Green Wall programme to be more meaningful, the citizens ought to be actively mobilised to imbibe the culture of tree-planting and tree-nurturing.

Concerted efforts should also be geared toward the conservation of the ecosystem, they add.

Adamu writes for NAN.

Sani Adamu