Expert Advocates Planting of More Trees to Combat Desertification …..as Teku Farm Donates 550 Trees to Kaduna Government

By ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna
An expert in Environment, has advocated for planting of more trees in replacement for the ones cut down, as part of solution to combating desertification and recreating the green wall project, this was as Teku International Farm donates 550 trees to the Kaduna State Government.
Tabi Joda, Executive Director, Green Aid, who made the call on Thursday, at an event to commemorate the ‘World Desertification Day’ in Kaduna, organized by Teku International Farm and African Climate Reporters, also expressed concern that over 3,000000 square metres of land in sub-Sahara Africa have already been taken over by desertification.

“To make this possible, i call on individuals, Community leaders, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), to really look into the necessity and urgency of combating this desertification, because so many communities are already feeling the threats of desertification.
“The people should understand that masses of disasters that we are experiencing now, like drought, flood, soil degradation and erosion are all as a result of artificial human activities that has caused desertification, so what the people should do is to reverse the trend by planting trees.
“Communities, CSOs should engaged in trees planting, practical planting of tree and make sure this trees grows to maturity, and then policies should follow, for instance; if there is a policy like ‘cut down one tree and plant five new ones, that will help in maintaining.

“Even if people use trees for cooking fuel, it won’t cause any challenge as such because there is enough restoration and replenishing of the trees that has been cut down, but if we allow it to go fallow, then one day we will wake-up not having any tree.” Joda said.
Receiving the 550 trees donated by Teku Farm, Dr. Abdulkadir Kasim, Permanent Secretary Kaduna State Ministry of Agric and Forestry, noted the action of management of the farm is a great eye opener for the state government.
According to him, “the desire of the state government is gradually coming to fusion, it is the desire of this government to ensure we encourage private sector in whatever human endeavor we get involved with.
“You know agriculture for now is the in thing and the saviour of the country, and having realise that we have partners in progress in the private sector like the Teku farm, I think we are getting somewhere, we are impressed with support from the farm giving us over 500 trees and we have promised them that the government will work closely with them to train our youths and also farms to come and imbibed the culture of fruit trees production, so that we address the issues of desertification and deforestation in Kaduna and Nigeria at large.
“The desire of the state is to have the green wall project, which we have started in Ikara, cutting across six local government areas, spanning about 313 kilometres.
“We have gone far and we have been trying to sensitise people, but our challenge is this aspect of providing adequate numbers of seedlings and Teku coming to support us, I think is timely to make us achieve our desire and also to show the people that planting trees is not a waste, in fact it is more sustainable and more revenue realising kind of intervention.”

Earlier, Ibrahim salisu Founder of Teku International, kaduna, had revealed that his farm is supporting the government with 550 different varieties of trees species, in their effort at combating desertification that is encroaching the state.

He said, the demand for charcoal has caused a lots of problems which is threatening the existence of forestry, hence the need to stand up and support the government in the fight against desertification through donating trees and also used other means of informing the society on the danger of cutting down tress with planting a new one.

According to him, millions of people from Northeastern Nigeria were forced to migrate due to the effect of desertification and how it affected their farmland and their environment.

“The best way to halt the speed of desertification that is turning agricultural land to sahara is to plant trees, and sensitize the public on the implication of cutting down tress without planting a new ones.

“The Continuous cultivation without adding supplements, overgrazing, lack of soil and water conservation structures, and indiscriminate bushfires aggravate the process of desertification.” He added.

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  1. November 18, 2023

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