The Director, Forestry and Wildlife Management, Ministry of Environment, Gombe State, Alhaji Sa’ad Hashidu, says the recent tree planting initiative and establishment of nurseries in several communities are to tackle environmental challenges.
Hashidu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe, the state capital, on Monday, August 26, 2019 that the state government had already planted over 13,000 trees in various selected sites in 12 locations and established several nurseries in three communities.
He said the serious impact of climate change on environment had drawn global attention to environmental crises that might cause serious threat to life if nothing was done; hence the urgent efforts by the state government to address it.
He said Gov. Inuwa Yahaya would inaugurate the tree planting initiative on Tuesday, adding that it would mark the beginning of massive planting with 500,000 seedlings already in stock.
According to him, the state is having its fair share of environmental crisis in desertification, erosion and land degradation which the new administration is determined to mitigate.
“The state governor is partnering with several organisations, NGOs within and outside the state to ensure that the four million trees in four years is achieved.
“With the serious impact of erosion, desertification and other environmental issues we are experiencing in the state, we need no one to tell us that we need to act.
“The governor has shown great interest in resuscitating the environment. Years back, we had forest reserves that were well stocked with various species of tree but today they are no more.
“Those trees have been cut down for either fuel-wood or charcoal. This has contributed to the series of environmental crises surfacing as sheet erosion, desertification and even poor soil for farming,” he said.
Hashidu said that Gombe Goes Green (3G) was an initiative of Yahaya to plant four million trees to mitigate the effect of climate change on the environment, adding that the state government was committed to the project.
“In order to achieve this project, we have commenced the establishment of new nurseries in three communities: Hashidu, Malam-Sidi and Kaltungo.
“We are also rehabilitating our central nursery in Bogo and Kwadom.
“This, we are doing to feed the 3Gs initiative to ensure that we have enough stock. We are building our capacity towards securing adequate number of tree seedlings to sustain the four-million target,” he said.
Hashidu called on the people to assists government to ensure they watch and protect the trees to maturity.
By Uwumarogie Peter
