Environmental degradation and loss of arable land

RECENTLY, the Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Halima Taylor Alao bemoaned the rate at which Nigeria is losing valuable land to the forces of desertification and ocean surge in the northern and southern parts of the country. The Minister expressed her disgust in Abuja when she received the Bauchi State Governor, Mallam Isa Yuguda, who came to seek the assistance of the Federal Government to combat desert encroachment in his state.

According to the Minister, in an effort to tackle the menace of desert encroachment and prevent further loss of arable land, the Ministry is planning to plant about 70 million trees under the Green Wall Sahara (GWS) project, which is expected to cover most of the 11 frontline states in the north. In the same vein, she stated that proactive steps would be taken towards preventing the incidence of flooding and coastal erosion in the south.

It is no longer news that large chunks of the country's landscape have been lost to erosion and desertification. In the north, for example, the Sahara Desert is advancing at increasing speed into the terrestrial landscape of the adjoining states. We have stressed this fact in our previous editorials and yet nothing has been done. At the moment, desert encroachment has practically swallowed parts of Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Yobe and Borno states. Further southwards, fast moving desert conditions have caught up with Adamawa, Gombe, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau states. As it is now, desertification has virtually affected the entire savanna landscape of the country.

In the southern states, there is considerable anxiety over the extent of ecological destruction caused by aggravated soil erosion in many states. For instance, in parts of Anambra State, including Ekwulobia and Agulu Nanka, hundreds of family homes and thousands of people have been displaced by gully erosion. Villages and farmlands have disappeared due to massive landslide caused by gullies.

Soil erosion has similarly wreaked havoc in parts of Imo, Abia, Edo, Ondo and Benue states. The country's coastline is not spared from the environmental damage. The exposed coastline stretching from Lagos into the Niger Delta states are continuously washed away by tidal waves as the coastline recedes inwards. In all, the country is facing severe environmental degradation, which unfortunately is not being given any serious attention by the authorities.

The Environment Minister was right to advocate the importance of tree planting as a solution to the loss of ecological landscape. One common denominator in losing land to either desertification or soil erosion is the loss of vegetal cover. Regrettably, Nigeria is among the countries in Africa where massive destruction of forest is taking place because of the supply of firewood. The current energy crisis plaguing Nigeria is taking severe toll on the indigenous forests across the country.

Firewood has become the main and only dependable source of domestic energy just as the price of gas and kerosene remains prohibitive and unaffordable to the average Nigerian family. There is hardly any Nigerian family that does not depend on firewood in one way or the other for heating or cooking.

In absolute terms, it has been found through research that Nigerians consume from 1.9kg to 4kg/day/capita of firewood depending on household size. When applied to the country's population currently put at about 140 million people, the country consumes about 266 million kilogrammes of firewood daily. This is indeed enormous for the forest to bear.

There is a flourishing firewood business enterprise in the country. Firewood merchants are aggressively ravaging the country's ecosystem through massive firewood harvesting. Some traditional industrial processing businesses such as fish processing and palm oil production depend wholly on firewood as source of energy. Nigeria is a major producer of palm oil.

In the light of the foregoing, the solution to combating desertification and soil erosion lies in tackling the problem of forest destruction, which in turn requires tackling the country's energy crisis.

Be that as it may, the question should be asked: what the states are doing with the ecological fund that was set aside to tackle ecological problems? There is nothing to suggest that the ecological fund is being properly utilised. The fund is unaccounted for, as it has been treated so far as booty for the governors. It is disheartening that money meant for tackling ecological problems is pocketed while the country's ecosystem disappears.

The Federal Government cannot address ecological problems in all the states. Under the federal structure, each state is responsible for dealing with environmental problems within its borders. The Federal Government may assist in severe cases when it is absolutely necessary, and it should see the need to do so.

With regard to tree planting, experience from dry land regions of Eastern and Southern Africa shows that effective reforestation programme are people-oriented. The Green Belt Movement project initiated by Wangari Mathai in Kenya has demonstrated the need to carry the people along. The mobilisation of grassroots population in extensive tree planting has the capacity to transform large expanse of degraded landscape into green belts.

On this note, both the people and groups in civil society should be involved in the much talked about Green Wall Sahara project. The states in the north should mobilise their people in a conscious effort to re-green their degraded landscape. Similarly, the southern states should carry the people along in tree planting campaigns. The ecological fund should be applied judiciously and monitored to ensure that the states and local governments work together to tackle emerging environmental challenges. Faced with the challenge of climate change to which Nigeria is vulnerable, the problem of ecological destruction is bound to worsen.

Regrettably, Nigeria has contributed nothing but has remained silent on the matter. The states and local governments should show a greater determination to tackle environmental degradation in their areas of jurisdiction.