NIGERIA MAY BECOME DESERT SOON IF …..CONSERVATION FOUNDATION HINTS

He said that mangroves were also being lost in the Niger Delta and that the nation had already lost up to 95 per cent of its forest cover,warning that urgent measures must be taken to curb deforestation and forest degradation to stop what he described as ugly consequences of climate change for the nation.

The Foundation boss also cautioned on the “firewood crisis,’’ noting  that the problem must be addressed to discourage use of fire wood use as cooking gas, stressing the need to strengthen the Green Recovery Nigeria scheme, aimed at retaining a significant proportion of Nigeria’s landmass under forest.

Penpushing also reports that, Aminu-Kano called for sustained intensive awareness campaign among all tiers of governments to change the practice of tree felling to tree planting, emphasizing that government must have to promote clean sources of cooking energy to protect the nation’s forests form being used as firewood.

“Green Recovery Nigeria is our push to bring the agenda that Nigeria is pathetically loosing 95 per cent of its forest cover and we have only five per cent left. 350,000 hectares of land are being lost annually to desertification and the land lost is about 0.6, which is about half a kilometre every year’.

“If you think you live in Lagos and it cannot reach you, it will only take some time. Imagine the annual movement of 0.6 kilometres.’’

Penpushing further reports that, the Chairman of the Foundation  Board of Trustees, Philip Asiodu, in a speech, recalled that Nigeria entered an agreement with the Food and Agriculture Organisation in 1988 to restore 25 per cent of its forest cover.

He  said that while other African countries commenced implementation of the agreement, Nigeria had done nothing and had lost almost all its forest cover,noting that with increasing population, the effects of climate change were manifested through gully erosions in the South East and desertification in the Sahel.