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Nigeria: Halting the Sahara Desert With a Bucket [ii]
Daily Trust (Abuja)
COLUMN
27 June 2008
Adamu Adamu
The government must, however, do its own part before royal fathers will be expected to do theirs. For one, seedlings, for instance, can not be planted unless they are made available. And making them available must be the very first step in any serious effort towards a successful and sustainable tree planting. The development and maintenance of plant nurseries must therefore be seen and treated as a priority that would be very liberally funded and closely supervised by the Federal Government; and there should be as many of them as would be required to plant at least 20 million trees annually. Ideally, at least there should be one nursery established and maintained in each ward of every local government of the affected states. Affected states are the eleven arid Front Line states-Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Yobe, Borno, Gombe, Adamawa; and their eight semi-arid neighbours-Kwara, Niger, Kogi, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue and Taraba-and the Federal Capital Territory. The arid states are in danger of becoming desert-Borno is perhaps already there; and for the others, it is just a matter of time.
But with the will, the trend can be reversed; because this is a land that can be moved to produce to order-whether it is tree planting or for agricultural production-as was done during colonial times. This happened in the 1920’s and 1930’s when the colonial government mounted a massive propaganda campaign to redirect the whole agricultural effort of the sub-region towards producing groundnuts for European industries. Using the apparatus of Indirect Rule, the British engaged the Emirs, all strata of leadership and the entire machinery of government in the campaign for groundnuts. Groundnuts seeds were distributed to farmers and private firms were licensed to set up a vast marketing network.
In Nigeria, where figures are not easily available, it has been estimated that as a result of the campaign, groundnut production in many places rose more than 20 times from pre-campaign levels; this was the time when the pyramids sprouted in Kano and environs. In neighbouring Niger Republic, where figures for the same period are available, groundnut exports from the Damagaram Prefecture, for instance, rose from a mere 4,500 metric tons in 1928, to 78,900 metric tons in 1970.
Much the same thing was done for tree-planting campaigns during the First Republic; and these efforts continued well into the 1970’s; and they would never have been successful without the support and participation of the traditional leadership. And we must do the same today if we want to succeed; and if the Emirs can and do check the Sahara, that will be a greater achievement than the constitutional role some feel that they should get. This is by far more important.
No doubt, desertification is today the most serious environmental threat currently facing Nigeria’s territory, dwarfing the combined issues of degradation caused by oil spillage in the Niger Delta and soil erosion in the South East in the extent of its devastation and ultimate consequences. Right now, the government has voted $50 million to combat desertification this year; but what is required is perhaps more in the region of 20 times that figure. But because of corruption, more than three quarters of even this amount will be misappropriated, while the remaining quarter will almost certainly be misapplied. At any event, nothing less than a billion dollars every year for the next two decades will reverse the march of the Sahara; and even at that only provided corruption is checked.
And if the government is really serious about fighting desert encroachment, it should demonstrate readiness to deploy the required political and financial commitment to win the war. It also should set up and direct all affected states to set up Action Programmes similar to the National Action Committees on AIDS.
It should have been obvious by now that the magnitude of the problem posed by desertification is well beyond the capacity, if not the purse, of the Ecological Funds Office. Perhaps this office should be merged with the Ministry of Environment to look after other ecological problems so that a new Ministry of Afforestation could concentrate purely on desertification and related issues. Obviously, within the period of the existence of the Ministry of Environment, a Ministry of Afforestation, focused solely on desertification, would have reclaimed the land that is now degraded; and this would have led to an improvement of Sahel climate; it would also have boosted agriculture, including cash crop which, carefully managed, could rival, if not surpass, solid minerals as a foreign exchange earner; which would all have led to more sustainable development.
When they created the Ministry of Solid Minerals, it was, no doubt, a commendable move, especially seen from the perspective of the need for the diversification of the base of the economy and exploring other avenues for foreign exchange; but from a more correct national priority perspective, the creation of a Ministry of Afforestation would have been more like it.
But this new ministry is not just for planting trees; and it should be obvious that merely planting trees alone is no panacea for desertification. If between 1985 and 1997, for instance, more than 60 million trees have been planted in Niger Republic, and this has not halted the advance of the Sahara, clearly there is more to it than just trees; and a change in strategy is called for.
The most practical solution to desertification, therefore, is to directly involve the farmers themselves in the effort to stabilise their farmlands. Instead of being handed only ‘economically useless’ neem tree seedlings to plant, they should have a choice of economic trees in the form of edible perennials to intercrop with the annuals-cereals or nuts-that they grow in their fields.
In addition to providing cover against heat and evaporation, which will have in turn helped maintain fertility and improve yield, these trees would anchor the soil against both wind and water erosion. It is not at all likely that these farmers would cut down the trees they themselves planted and from which they were getting other economic benefits.
Some specialists have in fact claimed that in many places in West Africa, the desert is racing south at a rate of six kilometres every year, casting doubt over the claim that in Nigeria it is encroaching by only a little over half a kilometer each year. In neighbouring Niger Republic, where the Sahara has already swallowed up two-thirds of the country’s surface area, the people used up more than 3.4 million tones of wood in 2006, and will be burning more than 4 million tones annually from 2010. Between 1990 and 2005, more than 679,000 hectares of Nigerien tropical forest have been lost, and currently almost 200,000 hectares are being depleted each year. Here, it is definite that the Sahara is going south and west at the rate of six kilometres a year.
Nigerians are virtually unregulated in their land use, or, more appropriately, in their land-misuse. Consequently, every year, several thousands of hectares of the best lands are lost to small-time hunters who set fire to the entire countryside, unleashing a chain reaction of ecological catastrophes, just in order to catch a grass-cutter. They devastate large tracts of virgin land and forest reserves as a pastime. Perhaps a new law to prosecute those who do this as national saboteurs will at this stage not be in order.
The cost of desertification has truly been incalculable. Within the last two and a half decades, Nigeria’s agricultural production has collapsed to only a quarter of its pre-drought levels. But the real cost is in the food insecurity that has held the nation hostage; and the degradation of the land that has led to increased poverty in the rural areas, which in turn led to an unprecedented rural-urban exodus.
The ministry should create public awareness of the dangers of desertification so that this will help limit the havoc people are causing the environment; while the government should encourage sub-regional and international cooperation, and coordinate the emerging public-private-NGO-foreign government partnership in the fight against desertification. But, first, it should begin by implementing all the provisions of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
In addition, the ministry should draw up the parameters for a new corporate environmental responsibility in which companies that draw their profits directly from the land or whose activities have negative, harmful impact on the environment should be made to contribute towards the fight against desertification.
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