Read at : Google Alert – desertification
FG moves to combat desertification
President Umaru Yar’Adua has said that government would give priority to combating desert encroachment. Yar’Adua said this Tuesday at the 2008 World Desertification Day hosted by the Bauchi State Government. The president was represented by Mrs. Halima Alao, the minister of environment, housing and urban development on the occasion. Yar’Adua said: “The government is following with keen interest the developments at the National Assembly to establish an institution that would handle the issues of land degradation in the country.” According to him, the Federal Ministry of Environment is implementing a number of integrated programmes aimed at checking the problem. Yar’Adua identified the Green Wall Sahara Initiative (GWSI) as one of the programmes and said the project had the potential of turning fragile land into the nation’s food basket. He therefore, called on the 11 frontline states affected by desert encroachment to pursue the initiative both at the state and local government levels in order to control the problem.
The states are Yobe, Zamfara, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kano, katsina, Gombe, Borno, Sokoto, Adamawa and Jigawa.
Yar’Adua noted that climate change was a major contributing factor to desert encroachment due to global warming, and urged Nigerians to plant trees in order to cool the earth.
According to him, land degradation and desert encroachment have constituted a bottleneck in the development of the affected areas of the country.
The president said the government was committed to sustainable afforestation programme for the mitigation of the effects of climate change.
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