‘Tree planting campaign hijacked by politicians’

Why are various government policies to restock the forest not producing the needed results?
This is majorly because forests are state owned not federal, so when federal government enters into international agreement concerning forest conservation and attempts to domesticate such polices and implement them at state level it becomes very difficult and since the federal government doesn’t own the forests it cannot enforce implementation. So it is a major problem. The only solution will be to get the states on board so that they will be part and parcel of the whole policy processes and through that things can improve.

The Presidential Initiative on Forestation also failed to make any impact. Why?
The Federal Government is also having challenges in implementing its own policies. The initiative is a brilliant idea but it was entirely planned and implemented by the federal government without the participation of the states. This attitude and posture of the federal government has been the major problem. For any policy on forestation to work, state that owns the forest must key into any programme of the federal government on forest to enable such succeed.
So we need a situation whereby the federal government will do more on carrying along the states and bringing them on board especially at the point of policy formation. Since the top bottom approach doesn’t work for us we should begin to experiment with the bottom up approach and that is when all the states really get on board.

What is the implication of states giving financial targets to the ministry overseeing forests?
It lead to serious deforestation because for the ministry to meet its target it has to issue licenses to contractors to cut down more trees. It is really a bad development and should not be encouraged. We should learn how to use the annual allowable cut as is done in developed countries where there is an estimate of what should be sustainably removed from the forest and that is what all states should implement but that is not the case.

The Great Green Wall project in the country has suffered several setbacks. Is it a viable option to restock our forests?
Yes, the Great Green Wall project is a very viable option especially to curtail desert encroachment because it has to do with the front line states at the northern-most part of the country. It is a programme meant to grow trees so as to stop desert from encroaching into the country. It is a very variable project as well as variable option for the country to address the issue of desertification but deliberate efforts must be made to sensitise the local communities and get them involved in the implementation and am sure it will succeed.

What is the country’s current forest cover?
Our forest cover as of the last estimate is 9.8 percent of the total land area of the country, a little less than 10.

So what is the implication of that to us as a country?
We are far below the estimate of 25 per cent which is the recommended standard for every country in the world. A country like Canada has more than 60 per cent cover and so on. We really need to work hard to be able to increase the forest cover in Nigeria.

Will the annual tree planting campaign help in increasing the cover?
No. The national tree planning campaign is a very good initiative when it started, but over the years it has become mere jamboree. The exercise is only on cameras where you will just see people planting and no follow ups. There are supposed to be tree planting activities over a period of time following the kickoff but most times everything ends at the kickoff and nothing is done afterward.

This laudable initiative which is a core technical programme to be handled by experts has been taken over by politicians who have rubbished the essence of the programme and reduced it to just one-day of planting trees for the TV cameras and no one goes back to check what happened to the tree planted. The development is a wake-up call to all forest experts to ensure that politicians do not destroy this programme which has the potential of increasing our forest cover within the shortest time.