Read at : Google Alert – desertification
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRl3bXLO1F9KyjqDIh5z_DEgqK7A
Nigeria pledges 50 million dlrs to fight desertification
KANO, Nigeria (AFP) — Nigeria plans to spend 51 million dollars over the next six months to battle desertification which encroaches into the country at a yearly rate of 10 kilometres (six miles), a minister said Tuesday. “As part of the efforts to tackle the problem of desertification, the government will commit six billion naira (51 million dollars) this year in tree planting,” Environment Minister Halima Taiwo Alao said at a UN-backed ceremony on World Desertification Day, in Nigeria’s northern city of Bauchi. “The government is committed to sustainable afforestation to deal with desertification… and tree planting has now become a major tool to deal with this serious problem,” she added.
But Kabiru Yammama, a UN consultant on rural energy, scoffed at the announcement saying the Nigerian government’s approach to stemming desertification was ineffective.
Yammama, who also serves as a Nigerian government expert on the environment, said 11 northern states have been planting 50 million tree seedlings every year to retard desert encroachment without any noticeable results.
“More than 37 million out of the 50 million seedlings planted annually by the 11 northern states do not survive for more than two months because nobody waters them and this is a serious setback to reforestation and desertification control,” Yammama told AFP in a phone interview.
“The remaining 13 million that survive are chopped down for wood fuel. This will certainly be the fate of the six billion naira worth of seedlings the government has promised,” Yammama said.
He said the last 50 years have seen 35 percent of arable land in the 11 northern states run over by desert, affecting the livelihood of over 55 million people, more than the combined population of Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mauritania.
But Garba Yusuf, an environment commissioner for Kano state, blamed local communities for lacking interest in the reforestation scheme.
“You don’t expect state governments to leave all work and concentrate on nurturing 50 million trees, the people have to help,” Yusuf told AFP in his office.
“You can’t plant a tree in the desert without water source and expect the people who are struggling for water to meet their human needs to shoulder the extra burden of watering it,” Yammama countered.
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