Deforestation in Nigeria

Photo credit: The Guardian

Dr.Godwin Uyi Ojo

Groups raise alarm over deforestation in Cross River

By Anietie Akpan

WITH Nigeria losing over 500,000 hectares of forest yearly to deforestation, experts have called for the repeal of the Land Use Act in the country.

Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, (ERA/FoEN) Dr.Godwin Uyi Ojo, in an inception workshop on “Community Mobilization and Resistance Against Land Grabbing and Transnational Oil Palm Plantations in Cross River State” in Akamkpa on last week by ERA/FoEN-RainForest Resources Development Centre (IDRC), said this massive loss of land is against the recent globally approved land guidelines of 2012, which is intended to protect communities’ right to land and forests.

He said, “on a global scale there is a growing effort to discentralised natural resource management in ways that local communities can share in the roles, responsibilities and benefits from conservation and forest management.

This sort of initiative is gradually gaining roots in Ghana, Liberia, Uganda, Cameroun, where Community-Based Forest Management Systems (CBFMS) have been elaborated and functional.

Read the full article: The Guardian