Expert Blames Poor Tree Planting Culture For Desertification

A forestry expert, Mr. Fred Nwokocha, has attributed the slow space of fighting desertification to lack of continuity in various campaigns for tree planting which has resulted to the dearth of trees in the nation’s eco-system.

Nwokocha who stated this in an exclusive interview with our special correspondent in Port Harcourt yesterday explained that the poor tree planting culture was occasioned largely by governments’ practice of making rituals out of the numerous tree planting campaigns embarked upon over the years.

“For a very long time, governments at all levels has been celebrating tree planting campaigns without sustaining the process which makes nonsense of such laudable initiatives”, he said.

Nwokocha, a retired director of forestry in the Rivers State Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources explained that in order to check the rise in climate change, international organisations should be involved to enable local farmers key into tree planting.

According to him, when trees were planted in abundance, it helps deplete the “carbon credit” of the environment thereby increasing the oxygen content needed for man and animal among other beneficiaries.

He said a situation were tree planting was made a profitable venture by farmers should be encouraged by properly working together with various international NGOs.

He further explained that in most East African countries like Kenya, Uganda among others, international tree planting groups provide trees to farmers for inter cropping along with their crops and that these arrangement has paid off in the countries that have adopted the measure.

He said the essence was that these smallholder farmers groups were provided with seedlings by the NGOs and in return they were paid money which does not add to their income, but side their crop yield.

While urging governments at all levels to replicate what the East Africans were doing, he called on farmers and individuals specially landowners and developers to consider tree planting first before embarking on buildings and other projects on their sites.

He frowned of the practice were people build on large areas without any plan for greenery, adding that “a concrete all environment” was not a human friendly one.

“A situation were people build on large expanse of land with interlocking blocks finishing without a single tree in the entire area does not make for good ecosystem  friendly arrangement and should be discouraged”, he adviced.