Read at : Google Alert - desertification
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Daily Trust (Abuja)
16 March 2008
Posted to the web 17 March 2008
Hassan Idris
Abuja
More than half of bush burning throughout Nigeria is deliberately lit, costing millions of naira damages annually. The questions which need answers are, what motivates an arsonist and what do they feel when the bush is burning? This feature proffers solutions to the problems. The negative impact of bush burning need not to be over emphasised especially during the hot season in northern Nigeria as apart from environmental pollution and health hazards, bush burning obviously causes immense catastrophes in many quarters. They include bush burning as public nuisance, the suffocating experience felt by people due to the huge smoke soaring in the air during the heat, and the pollution of the ozone layer of the environment. In this regard, the menace is of double tragedy in the sense that while the heat is unbearable, bush burning fires also heat up the soil thereby blazing up its nutrients including the fertilizer elements. Furthermore, the fire is smouldering and all the proponents of the plants as well as the grasses that are useful in conserving the forest, Wildlife and small animals are being destroyed in large proportion.
Based on the new issues in soil fertility management, the menace of bush burning should be adequately looked into with a view to discouraging it especially in the northern parts of the country. A report on the Soils of Nigeria published in 1990, based on field surveys that was undertaken in 1985, indicated that apart from bush burning, in Nigeria, other problems created by soil abusers “are in the form of land clearing, with wrong tools, construction of all types, mining including quarrying and fertilizer use, overgrazing, and intensive/over-use of land through any form of cultivation.”
The report pointed out that “bush burning including all the above factors therefore, are threatening the existence of arable land and there is the fear that if the abuses are not checked and brought under control, Nigeria’s ability to feed herself might be a mirage.”
However, the major hazards being experienced in Nigeria, the report says,” includes land degradation, flooding, erosion, deforestation, desertification and climatic drought,” in the present farming systems of the land area in Nigeria.
An expert, Dr. Ismail Iro who is the founder of www.gamji.com. and Programmer/Data Analyst in Washington, D.C. USA, in his article, “Traditionalism Vs. Modernism: A Look at Fulani Methods of Livestock Disease Management” says, “Bush burning is the commonest traditional method of combating insects. All of the cattle-raising Fulani who have been interviewed say they habitually use moderate, localized fires to fight off ticks, insects, and harmful pests from the homes and kraals. When the Fulani set fire, their intention is not to generate heat but to send out dense smoke that repels the ants, bugs, bees, locusts, rodents, and reptiles.”
In the spirit of reality and precision by Fulani herdsmen, Dr. Iro maintained that, “despite its widely acclaimed advantages, the long-term effects of fires are devastating. Burning can lead to an uncontrollable spread that engulfs acres of grass land within hours. Because such fires deprive the animals of their important source of food and dietary supplements, the Fulani and the government officials object to burning, even though the Fulani use the fires.”
He however, argued that Government policy on burning is lapse, in the sense that, “not only the Fulani, but also veterinary workers and range officials condemn any range use involving burning.”
In the light of the above, most parts of the north were adversely affected by the menace according him, “Large-scale fires shrink the radii of the grazing land, thereby exacerbating the stressful conditions under which the animals live. In Kano and Katsina States for example, the authorities have outlawed burning and have instituted steep penalties of heavy monetary fines on violators.”
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