Agroforestry and the IDP

 

 

Agroforestry could give Nigeria’s IDPs a new future

Submitted by Kate Langford on February 29, 2016

Internally displaced people (IDP) in northeast Nigeria need to be given alternative livelihoods, such as agroforestry, if they are to return to their homes, says an article in Premium Times.

Charles Reith, professor of environmental sciences with the American University of Nigeria, says allowing IDPs to return to their homes without tackling desertification would set the stage for continued conflict, both by terrorists and between herders and farmers.

He says climate change, desertification and resource scarcity are important drivers of conflict and violence. In the northeast of Nigeria, desertification has impacted the area for generations.

Reith advocates for alternatives to cropping that expose the soil to erosion, such as agroforestry to “push back desertification” and fruit-bearing trees interspersed with crops to “restore the soil, provide year-round food, and create products to sell for income”.

Read the full story : World Agroforestry Centre

Phenomenal GGW achievements in Nigeria

 

Photo credit Google: http://a.static.trunity.net/files/123101_123200/123138/250px-Veg_patch-Nigeria.JPG

Growing vegetables on a patch of cleared forest, Nigeria. The forest will be allowed to regenerate. (Source: M. Edwards/Still Pictures)

Desertification: GGW Trains 5000 Farmers In Forestry, Natural Regeneration

By Patience Ivie Ihejirika

As part of efforts to mitigate desertification, the National Great Green Wall Agency of Nigeria has trained over 5000 farmers in the north, in forestry and natural regeneration.

The Minister of State for Environment, Alhaji Ibrahim Jibril, who stated this yesterday, at the Regional Technical Workshop on Restoration, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in Abuja, said the GGW programme pay particular attention to local community participation and ownership which he said are central to planning, implementation and management of the projects.

According to him, over 500 unemployed youths have also been trained and engaged as forest guards in communities where the GGW projects are ongoing.

The minister further stated that aside tree planting, the programme has also helped improved the well-being and livelihood of inhabitants of these communities with the provision of some amenities like wind powered boreholes, skill acquisition centres, shelterbelt and others.

“Since 2013 when the GGW programme implementation commenced in Nigeria, numerous initiatives have been implemented and these have started impacting positively on the affected communities in the drylands of the country.

“We have been able to accomplish, among others, within this short period of time the following: establishment of 415km shelterbelt; 135ha community woodlot; 235ha community orchard; and 138ha community vegetable garden.

 

Read the story: Leadership

Extensive debate about another desertification agency in Nigeria

Desertification and the Great Green Wall: Who is who ?

 

Nigeria: Rumbles Over Plan to Create Desertification Agency

in DAILY TRUST

By Musa Abdullahi Krishi and Ibrahim Kabiru Sule

In spite of the uproar and dissenting voices raised against a plan to establish another desertification agency in the country, members of the House of Representatives are fast-tracking a process that will lead to the establishment of another agency of government charged with the responsibility of desertification, erosion and flood.

A cross section of stakeholders who spoke to Daily Trust on the move said it would lead to duplication of agencies, a situation the present administration is working hard to reduce.

The lower chamber, on December 16, debated extensively and subsequently passed into second reading a bill towards the establishment of the agency.

Read the full article: allAfrica

Developing countries and landscape restoration

 

 

EVENT COVERAGE

Restoration: Developing countries are doing it for themselves

Developing countries will end up paying for most of their landscape restoration, says Nigeria’s former finance minister.

Developing countries are already financing the bulk of domestic land restoration efforts and cannot rely on international donors to fill the finance gaps, according to Nigerian economist and former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

“If we look at where the money for landscape restoration comes from now, according to a study by the New Climate Economic Group, we need $US250 billion a year to restore degraded landscapes for developing countries,” she said.

 “We are getting $US25 billion now, about one tenth. But 60 percent of what we get are from the domestic resources of countries themselves.”

In an interview during the 2015 Global Landscapes Forum in Paris, Okonjo-Iweala said that the conversation the international community is having needs to shift from international donors and finance, to how countries can be supported to finance their own restoration.

Read the full article: CIFOR

 

Quality seeds in Nigeria

Photo credit: CGIAR-RTB

A farmer at work in his cassava farm. Photo by IITA

New project to develop cassava seed businesses will enhance quality seed access, increase productivity and generate income in Nigeria

We are pleased and proud to announce the signing of a new project entitled ‘Building an Economically Sustainable, Integrated Seed System for Cassava in Nigeria’ with $USD11.6 million funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The four year project aims to sustainably improve farmers’ access to high quality and affordable cassava planting materials through the development and promotion of commercial models for seed provision.

The project will also build the capacity of Nigerian institutions like The National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) and the National Root Crops Research Institute in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) and other stakeholders, including both men and women cassava farmers, processors and commercial seed producers to develop and put in to place a testing, field inspection and certification system for cassava seed. This will in turn help fast-track improved breeders’ cassava varieties to farmers.

Read the full article: CGIAR-RTB

The Great Green Wall in Nigeria

Photo credit: Google

Soldiers patrol northern Nigeria

 

GGW And The Threat Of Desertification In Northern Nigeria

BY Ejike Ejike

As Nigeria battle the menace of Boko Haram insurgency, there is the need to look inward into other naturally disasters, such as desertification, that could create bigger problems for the country in the future. In this report, EJIKE EJIKE examines the efforts the Great Green Wall (GGW) Agency, is doing to curb the menace of desertification.

Desertification has become another disaster troubling the Northern part of the country after the Boko Haram insurgency. The majority of the states in the Northern part of the country, depend largely on agriculture for survival and with the lands being taken over by desertification, young men and women tend to move over to other places for greener pastures and this leads to urban migration.

According to the director general of the agency, Ahmed Goni, about 43 percent of Nigeria land mass risks desertification and hence, the need for adequate support to tackle this menace.

In a bid to curtail these effects, the Great Green Wall Agency, has begun massive development of these lands affected by desertification in 11 states, namely, Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina,Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara states

In Sokoto state for instance, Goni stated while seeking the support of Sokoto state’s government in tackling desertification in the stata that studies have shown that over 70 million Nigerians have direct and indirect experience of negative impact of drought and desertification in the country.

Despite the various challenges in the running of the activities of the GGW, the DG enumerated some of the achievements of the agency in Sokoto state, in its barely two years old, to include the establishment of 30km shelterbelts in Nashiyau, Sabon Sara, Mashaya, Garin Tela and Mano.

Others include the distribution of 8, 000 date palm seedlings alongside with other fruits like guava and moringa, provision of 12 boreholes and the ongoing construction of skill acquisition centre to serve as hub for job creation and training ground for youths in different fields.

Read the full story: Leadership

The people should support the Great Green Wall as they will be the beneficiaries at the end,

Photo credit: Daily Trust

Mrs. Nana Fatima Mede, PS Federal Ministry of Environment, Emir of Daura Alhaji Umar Faruk Umar and Goni Ahmed, DG, NAGGW during an advocacy visit to the emir in Daura recently Photo: Obadiah Bulus

‘GGW a vital tool to fight poverty, desertification’

By Alex Abutu & Larai Daze

Mrs Nana Fatima Mede, Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Environment has called on Nigerians especially those in the north to support the implementation of the Great Green Wall as it has the potentials of reducing poverty and stopping desertification.

Mede said during an advocacy visit to the Emir of Daura, Alhaji Umar Faruk Umar with the Director General, National Agency for the Great Green Wall, Mr Goni Ahmed that the project was conceived by African Heads of States as a means of solving one of Africa’s major challenges which is desertification.

“The project is implemented in Katsina and 10 other frontline states to assist in the fight against desertification, so it is important that the people support the project as they will be the beneficiaries at the end,” she said.
She also urged the Emir to educate the residents on the need to avoid indiscriminate dumping of refuse on flood plain said that the annual flood experienced in the Daura was as a result of absences of drainages, blocked water ways and building on flood plains.

Desertification in Nigeria

 

Desertification: Association To Plant 2.5 million Neem Seedlings In Jigawa

The Fulbe-Fulako Association of Nigeria, a Fulani social group, said on Wednesday that it had concluded arrangements to plant 2.5 million neem seedlings to combat desertification in Jigawa.

Alhaji Y’au Muhammad, the National Vice Chairman of the association, made this known while briefing newsmen on the activities of the association in Dutse on Wednesday. Muhammad said the exercise would be conducted in all nomadic settlements across the 27 local government areas of the state, adding that the initiative was part of the association’s corporate social responsibility in the state.

He said the association would employ casual workers from among nomadic children to be responsible for the growth of the seedlings. According to him, the gesture is to show the general public that the duty of nomads did not stop only at rearing animals. Muhammad said that the gesture was also aimed at creating employment among the nomadic children as they would be given a token allowance for their nurturing the seedlings.

Read the full article: Leadership

Proliferation of boreholes in Nigeria

Photo credit: This Day Live

Drilling a borehole

Threat of Boreholes

There are concerns among the residents of Tsaunin Kura GRA, Sabon-Tasha area of Kaduna metropolis over the proliferation of boreholes in the community. John Shiklam writes

The proliferation of borehole as a source of water for domestic use by residents of Tsaunin Kura GRA in Sabon -Tasha area of Kaduna metropolis is raising serious environmental concern among members of the community.

Unlike most government reserved areas (GRAs), where almost every amenity, from good road network to provision of electricity and potable water is provided by the government, the case of Tsaunin – Kura is different as the community had been solely responsible for the provision of these basic amenities following neglect by the state government.

Tsaunin Kura, a GRA populated by the Christians in the southern part of Kaduna metropolis, is the only GRA without motorable roads since its inception many years ago and it was only in 2013, that residents had to mobilise their resources for the grading of the roads to make them motorable. The state government later intervened by grading some of the roads.

But the failure of the Kaduna State Government to provide potable water  has left residence with no choice than to indiscriminately dig the ground for their water needs

Fears are being expressed about the environmental implication of concentration of boreholes and wells in the community in the future, if steps are not taken immediately to reverse the trend through provision of water to the area by the state water corporation.

Chairman of part of the Tsaunin Kura GRA, behind Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Mr. Timitayo Omole, in an interview with THISDAY said the present challenge requires urgent attention.

According to him, there are 13 boreholes within a radius of 150 metres, in different houses in the community, noting that the story is not peculiar to his side of the GRA alone.

Read the full article: This Day Live

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

Boreholes to curb desertification in NIgeria

 Photo credit: Google

Ndiokenyi Women working on borehole installation

FG constructs 92 boreholes to curb desertification in 9 states

Posted by HUSEYN.MBAR

The Federal Government has constructed 92 Solar Propel Boreholes in nine states, in its effort to curb desertification in the country.

The Minister for Environment, Mrs Laurentia Mllam, made this known on Thursday in Bauchi, while declaring open North East Stakeholders Forum with the theme: “GGW Project as a penance for sustainable Land Resource.”

Laurentia said that the wind powered borehole projects have provided employment opportunities in nine states most hit by desertification, with one thousand youths engaged in tree planting programme.

The minister, represented by the Head of Afforestation Programme Coordinating Unit (APCU), Kano State, Alhaji Saminu Ado, said that the ministry has also established 85 hectares of woodlots.

She said that the ministry would establish 800 hectares of grazing reserves before the end of the 2015 in Zamfara, Katsina, Yobe and Borno States.

The minister named: Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara States in Northern Region as those hard hit by desertification.

Alhaji Goni Ahmed, the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer, Great Green Wall (GGW), represented by Mr Babatunde Akinola, Head of Afforestation Unit, GGW, in a remark, said that the forum was organised by the ministry.

Read the full article: NAN

The Great Green Wall Programme imple­mentation Unit (GGW/PIU) in Nigeria

Photo credit: treeplantingholidays.com

Prospects of Great Green Wall initiative

BY MOSHOOD ISAH

EXCERPT

Great Green Wall : Workers water the Widu tree nursery in Senegal Louga region in 2012 – http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h–/q-95/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2012/7/12/1342102638249/Great-Green-Wall—Worker-008.jpg

In a bid to further improve Agriculture and increase envi­ronmental sustainability, Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan has ap­proved the upgrade of the Great Green Wall Programme imple­mentation Unit (GGW/PIU) to become an independent agency. The GGW/PIU now known as National Agency on Great Green Wall (NAGGW) was endorsed by the administration to urgently and holistically address the chal­lenges bedevilling desertification in the Northern parts of Nigeria.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Agency, Alhaji Goni Ahmed, who disclosed the new develop­ment, added that the President saw the need to upgrade the unit because of his belief and passion in environmental protection.

Interestingly some develop­ment partners have shown inter­est in the project with World Bank leading the pack. A leader of World Bank team to Nigeria who is also World Bank Senior Social Development specialist on Carbon Finance, Haddy J. Sey, who led a team to the agency said the Bank would collaborate with the agency on an initiative to reducing emis­sion from desertification and for­est degradation (REDD+) in de­veloping countries.

In this vein, the federal gov­ernment has taken the first giant stride in expending resources for the success of the Great Green Wall (GGW) project, aimed at ad­dressing desertification along the 11 northern frontline states.

The Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam who has also demonstrated greater com­mitment of the government to the project, has stressed that the project will provide shelter for the communities and also create an ozone-friendly environment in the selected states.

By all accounts, President Goodluck Jonathan appears to have taken the bull by the horns in mustering the political will to formally launch the Nigerian com­ponent of the Great Green Wall (GGW) Programme in states, like Katsina, Kebbi, and also taking the trend towards Borno State.

To further boost the initia­tive, the Federal Government has also approved contract for the procurement of 750,000 units of clean cooking stove, worth N9.2 billion, and 18,000 wonderbags (eco-friendly non-electric por­table slow cookers) for free dis­tribution to rural women nation­wide.

Read the full article: The Sun