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NIGERIA: Dead baby trees by the millions as reforestation fails
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KANO, 8 April 2008 (IRIN) – Of the 50 million seedlings planted every year in the 11 northern Nigeria states worst effected by desertification, 37.5 million wither and die within two months, environmental officials say. “The 12.5 million seedlings that make it to maturity are not enough to create a deforestation-reforestation equilibrium, especially given the fact that a large number of the trees that grow are later chopped down,” Kabiru Yammama of the National Forest Conservation Council of Nigeria [NFCCN] told IRIN. People in the north use an estimates 40.5 million tonnes of firewood each year, he said. At the same time, the desert is encroaching at an estimated annual rate of between 8 and 30 hectares in the 11 states, which are Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi. Around 35 percent of the arable land there has been overtaken by desert in the last 50 years, he added. This has adversely affected the livelihoods of over 55 million people, more than the combined population of Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mauritania. Failed ceremonies Until two years ago Nigeria’s president would fly up to one of the 11 states every September to ceremonially plant the first seedlings for the National Tree Planting Campaign, which coincided with World Environmental Day.
“The campaign was suspended because the government realised that it is an exercise in futility”, Yammama, of NFCCN, said. He blamed the failure on the government not the people: “You can’t plant a tree in the desert without a water source and expect people who are struggling for water for their human needs to shoulder the extra burden of watering it,” he said. Fresh strategies While the national campaign has been suspended, the 11 states governments are continuing to plant. The World Bank has provided funds for planting 1 billion seedlings in 2008 which will be funneled through the federal government to the states. Environmental officials do not agree on how they can reduce the failure rate of the seedlings. Jigawa State’s environment commissioner Yusuf Mato said he has a plan to plant the seedlings during the rainy season which starts in May. “Then the seedlings will be fed by rainwater and attain a certain level of growth before the [rainy] season ends”, he said.
