The Executive Director, Centre for Environment and Community Development, Port Harcourt, Mr John Akinuba, has called for more awareness about forest and its benefits to the society.

Speaking in an interview with The Tide last week, he observed that decision makers in Nigeria had not paid adequate attention to forestry, probably because they did not know the immense economic resources derivable from the forest.

He regretted that while some people see investment in forestry as a “jumbo investment,” others especially the young people are no longer interested in forestry because they see forestry as not being lucrative.

Akinuba said apart from being economically viable, conservation of forest is very significant to mitigate the effect of climate change, control temperature, moderate weather, control erosion, purify the air, among others.

“Forestry is very lucrative, I wonder what life would be without the forest”.

Our day to day livelihood largely depends on the forest and the sooner we all begin to contribute in protecting and preserving our forest, the better for us,” he insisted.

The environmentalist called for more, adequate funding of forestry activities by banks and government since such activities are capital intensive and cannot be afforded by many farmers.

He said each state government should draw up an urgent action plan on forestry which would include proper financing of forestry encouraging research work and the development of forest nurseries.

He stressed the need for people to plant trees around their houses to help in purifying the air. “The issue of tree planting is very important because climate change is a phenomenon that we cannot control but we can control the vegetation around us and the vegetation around us can inturn control the climate so if all of us imbibe the habit of planting trees around our houses, we can improve on the climate,” he said.

Calista Ezeaku