FG Moves To Fight Desertification

The Federal Government has put in place monitoring team to achieve the Great Green Wall (GGW) programme to fight desertification at both state and local levels.

The Director, Drought and Desertification Amelioration Department, Ministry of Environment, DrBukar Hassan, made this known to the news men in Abuja at the weekend.

Hassan said the Federal Government put in place the monitoring team led by a director in the ministry with a view to ensuring the implementation of the GGW programme.

“Before we conceive a programme we put in place the monitoring team because if you do not do that you are planning to fail from the beginning.

“Our programmes are usually in collaboration with states, in other words, if we have a project, we have two teams – the community themselves and the committee.

“The community is the first set of people to execute the project. We have monitoring team at the Federal and the state levels,” he said.

Hassan attributed inadequate rainfall as the major cause of desertification in the country, saying: “the primary ingredient is water and we provide water through boreholes”.

He said the department selected trees that were drought resistance for planting in affected areas so that it would not be a wasted project.

“We also have to bear in mind that when you plant these trees you must select trees that are drought resistance.

According to him, you cannot plant an Iroko tree in Jigawa, it will not survive. You must also be guided by the preference of the community.