In the last few months, we have all watched with horror the ruthless destruction of over 50 hectares worth of old-growth trees in the Ogunpa Forest Reserve surrounding Agodi Gardens in Ibadan, Oyo State.
We have heard chainsaws working overtime to bring down 70-year-old trees that once formed a major carbon sink for Ibadan City.
Magnificent trees that were instrumental in protecting the catchment area and massive watershed for the Ogunpa River, while preventing erosion and landslides on the steep forest slopes during torrential rains.
Indigenous and hardy imported trees that once housed generations of bats, birds, and small animals.
Fast growing trees that had been imported from Southeast Asia and planted among the indigenous trees by icons of the Western Region, Chiefs Awolowo and Akintola and Oseni; visionary leaders with conscience who understood the importance of the Ogunpa River Watershed and the need to protect it.
Those screaming chainsaws worked overtime week after week, destroying lush, green, living trees that had been breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out the oxygen that we breathe in, for longer than most of us have been alive.
Spectacular, efficiently functioning trees that had been storing water from trillions of raindrops year after year during countless rainy seasons, in their roots and the surrounding soil and gently releasing the water in safe quantities into the nearby water bodies; the Dandaru Tributary, the Agodi lake and the Ogunpa River with it’s notorious reputation for flood disasters (one of the major causes of the 1980 Ogunpa Flood Disaster was the extensive deforestation of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve on the lower slopes of Premier Hill to make way for the Cultural Centre).
The chainsaws never paused for a minute, felling tree after tree, even after the Bodija Estate Residents Association (BERA), supported by the Nigerian Field Society (NFS) and the Abiodi Biodiversity Preservation Centre, led by Oladipo Olasope, had filed a Court Injunction at the Federal High Court in Ibadan, to stop the relentless deforestation of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve.
Those chainsaws kept forging ahead, even after the defendants in the case, the Executive Governor of Oyo State, the Attorney General of Oyo State, the National Environmental
Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and the Baywood Infrastructures Limited, had been served.
I am told that they did not stop for breath until they reached the verge of the forest reserve that borders on Dejo Oyelese street in Old Bodija, the site of the recent horrific blast explosion.
They did not stop for breath until truckloads of old growth trees were strapped to overloaded trucks, day after day, and carted off to the nearest sawmill.
The chainsaws did not stop screaming until had reduced that rich, green forest space to a raw shocking landscape.
And in the wake of the chainsaws came the bulldozers and other weapons of mass forest destruction, uprooting the colossal network of underground roots, which had been holding the soil in place and storing storm water run-off for decades.
And when they had finished the uprooting, they were busy churning up the precious forest topsoil and flinging it here and there like dust.
By the way, topsoil is the nutrient rich upper layer of soil, which contains the most organic matter and microorganisms.
It can take anything from 500 to 1,000 years to create just one inch of topsoil. I guess nobody ever told that to OYSG and Baywood Infrastructures Limited.
By Rosalie Ann Modder-Oyefeso, Chairperson, Save Our Green Spaces Group; Member, Save Ogunpa Forest Reserve
