Read at : Google Alert – desertification
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Nigeria: Desertification – NGO to Distribute 50,000 Tree Seedlings Free
Leadership (Abuja)
9 May 2008
Teddy Nwanunobi
A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the Africa Desertification Control Initiative (ADCI), has disclosed its preparedness to battle the menace of desertification in the country with a free distribution of 50,000 tree seedlings to individuals in the country. Speaking on the project, which is underway, executive director of the NGO, Umar Danladi Dahiru, said that the distribution of the seedlings is part of ADCI’s activities to mark the forthcoming World Environmental Day (WED) in June. Dahiru, who spoke exclusively to our correspondent in Abuja, warned that with what experts have said about the speed of desertification, the middle-belt states would soon be facing what the 11-frontline states of the country are facing.
“Experts have said that desertification is moving at the speed of about 0.6 kilometres per annum. If care is not taken, with the rate at which this thing is encroaching on the land, states like Benue, Taraba, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Plateau, Niger and Kaduna may also be affected,” he warned.
The head of the Kano State-based organisation claimed that desertification has rendered a lot of people from the 11-frontline states, which include Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara states, jobless.
He noted that the people of these areas, whose major occupations are farming and animal rearing, are always losing the sources of their occupations (lands) through desertification and other forms of land degradation.
“This causes untold hardship, poverty and other social vices to the inhabitants of these desertified areas,” he said.
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