Nigeria may become desert, NCF warns

Nigeria is losing about a half kilometre of its land mass annually to desert encroachment and time is of essence before the entire country becomes a desert.

The Director-General of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, Dr Muktari Aminu-Kano, raised the alarm in Lagos on Sunday.

He made the disclosure at the 2018 edition of the Green Ball series with theme: “Green Recovery Nigeria: Restoring Mangroves and Reclaiming the Desert.”

Aminu-Kano said that mangroves were also being lost in the Niger Delta and that the nation had already lost up to 95 per cent of its forest cover.

He warned that urgent measures must be taken to curb deforestation and forest degradation to stop what he described as ugly consequences of climate change for the nation.

The NCF chief also warned on the “firewood crisis,’’ saying that the problem must be addressed to discourage use of fire wood use as cooking gas.

He stressed the need to strengthen the Green Recovery Nigeria scheme, aimed at retaining a significant proportion of Nigeria’s landmass under forest.

Aminu-Kano also called for sustained intensive awareness campaign among all tiers of governments to change the practice of tree felling to tree planting.

He noted that government must have to promote clean sources of cooking energy to protect the nation’s forests form being used as firewood.

“Green Recovery Nigeria is our push to bring the agenda that Nigeria is pathetically loosing 95 per cent of its forest cover and we have only five per cent left.

“350,000 hectares of land are being lost annually to desertification and the land lost is about 0.6, which is about half a kilometre every year.

“If you think you live in Lagos and it cannot reach you, it will only take some time. Imagine the annual movement of 0.6 kilometres.”