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http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=02/01/2008&qrTitle=Combating%20desert%20encroachment%20in%20Nigeria&qrColumn=FEATURES

Combating desert encroachment in Nigeria

Malam Danazumi Bello, 50, lives in Zaranda village, a suburb of the Bauchi metropolis, and earns his living from the sale of firewood.  Bello says he has been in the business for more than 20 years. ‘’I hail from Tulowa village in the northern part of Yobe state. I was forced to relocate to Bauchi after I lost my ancestral farmland to sand dunes due to the devastating effect of desertification. ‘’Today, I have no other means of livelihood, hence I decided to go into the business of selling firewood. ‘’I relocated to Bauchi because of its abundant forest resources. In my area, there are no more trees to cut as the desert has eaten up everything. Now, I earn between N1,OOO and N2,000 daily from the sale of firewood. The business here is very lucrative. Many people say it is cheaper to buy firewood than to buy kerosine for their household cooking,’’ Bello concludes. Bello is certainly not alone in the business that is gradually becoming a fad among able-bodied men and women in most parts of the northern states. Worried by the rampant felling of trees and its attendant consequences on the environment, the Bauchi government recently purchased 10,000 kerosine stoves. The stoves are to be distributed to communities in desert-prone local government areas to replace firewood as a source of domestic energy.

The state Commissioner for Information, Mr Bukar Bukata, says that government is worried about the negative effects of tree-felling to human, animal and plant life, and is desirous to mitigate it. The process of desertification is made worse by the loss of forest cover over areas that are prone to desert encroachment.

Bukata says that the government’s gesture is in tune with the Greenwall Sahara Project (GSP) initiated by the Obasanjo administration under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The state government, he further says, plans to raise millions of seedlings for distribution across the state during this year’s tree-planting season campaign. ‘’We are waging a total onslaught against desertification as it is a constant threat to the source of livelihood of millions of people in 15 of the 20 local government areas of the state,’’ he says.

The Greenwall Sahara Project is conceived to provide a shelter-belt from Mauritania on the West to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.

The Bauchi initiative once again underscores the need to effectively control desertification.

The federal government and the international community have for long expressed their anxiety over the dangers posed by desertification.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) appreciates the enormity of the problem and spends an average of 46 million dollars annually to combat the menace.

The menace of desertification affects some 11 states in Nigeria, and causes the loss of some 350,000 square metres of productive landmass annually. The worst affected states are Sokoto, Jigawa, Kebbi, Yobe, Borno and Bauchi. Others are, Katsina, Kano, Zamfara, Adamawa and Gombe states Recent studies suggest that between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of productive land in those states are vulnerable to wind erosion. This situation threatens the livelihood of more than 40 million people.

Experts say that the entire northern region, covering about 38 per cent of the country’s landmass, is at the risk of becoming inhabitable in the near future unless urgent steps are taken to stem the trend. There is also evidence to show that the effect of desertification is already taking its toll on humans, animals and plants in some northern states.

The Yobe State Ministry of Environment says that more than five million livestock are being threatened by desertification. It also says that inhabitants in eight local government areas are also under severe threat as surface and under-ground water sources are gradually drying up. Worried by the socio-economic effects of desertification, the Yobe deputy governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Geidam, recently called on the federal government to “act urgently” to mitigate the situation. He advised the federal government to implement the GSP in order to save the lives of millions of people in Nigeria.

The Emir of Yusufarii, Alhaji Mohammed Zakariya, who spoke in the same vein, wants “severe punishment’’ meted to any one caught destroying the forest for firewood. But as the world ponders over the best way to tackle the menace, the situation in Kebbi, Borno, Sokoto and other desert-prone states is getting worse as sand dunes are rapidly taking over many villages.

Former Kebbi governor, Alhaji Adamu Aliero, once blamed the biting poverty in the state on desert encroachment. ‘’One noticeable consequences of desert encroachment in the state is its accentuation of poverty, especially on inhabitants along the desert fringes,’’ Aliero said in a memo to the federal government. Perhaps, it was based on the complaints that former President Olusegun Obasanjo launched the shelter-belt programme in 2004.

More than 1.5 million new trees were expected to be planted from Maiduguri, the Borno capital to Birnin-Kebbi in Kebbi, a distance of about 1,500 kilometres. But Alhaji Mustapha Kurna, the Director of Forestry and Wildlife in the Borno State Ministry of Environment, says the situation is getting worse as the shelter-belt project is yet to take off. ‘’This is in spite of donation of hectares of land for the project by the state government,’’ he says. Kurna says that contracts have been awarded for a 10-kilometre shelter-belt in Damasa in the Mobar Local Government Area, and boreholes drilled. ‘’But we are still in the same position because not even a single tree has been planted,’’ he says. He expresses worry about the threat of the phenomenon in the state, and stresses that sand dunes had taken over farmlands in Mobar and Abadam council areas.

As a remedial measure, Kurna says that the state government raised two million seedlings for distributions to communities in 2006. Other efforts, he says, include the purchase of 25,000 seedlings which were distributed to Bama, Monguno, Gwoza, Biu and Benisheikh areas. Kurna blames the inability of the various tiers of government to evolve a permanent solution to desert encroachment on the lack of political will. ‘’Without political will, the trees, even if planted, cannot be sustained to maturity,’’ he says. He wants government to show more commitment, while emphasis should be on trees with short gestation period if the dream of combating desertification is to be achieved.

Many NGOs, individuals, corporate organisations and donor agencies have also joined in the fight against desert encroachment. But Chief Newton Jibunoh, an environmentalist, says Nigeria’s approach of solving the problem is wrong. ‘’We see desert encroachment as a problem rather than a challenge,’’ he says.

(continued)Sani Adamu, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)