NISEPA Decries Bush Burning

The Niger State Environmental Protection Agency (NISEPA) has decried the indiscriminate bush burning in the state.
The agency Deputy General Manager, Alhaji Usman Kolos who said this in an interview with newsmen in Minna said that the practice was detrimental to health and the environment.
He said that carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emitted during bush burning were dangerous to the body and they endangered the body system.
“Pulmonary vascular diseases are triggered during burning and the vulnerability was high during the harmattan.
“The smoke inhaled during such process harms the lungs like cigarette smoke does and this can lead to serious growth issues” Kolos said.
He said that bush burning also affected the soil by degrading its quality thereby losing fertility.
Kolos also said that bush burning increased soil temperature and exposed the soil to danger as it exposed it to the sun.
He explained that lack of shade increased the temperature of the soil.
“Burning the bushes destroyed microbes in the soil and some plants depend on microbes to thrive, without microbes plant growth are retarded and stunted” Kolos said.
He warned that anybody caught in the act would be charged and prosecuted by the agency mobile court.