97% of Nigerian communities still use firewood – UNDP

Mrs Rhoda Dia, Project Manager, UNDP-GEF Integrated Approach Programme for Food Security (IAP-FS), said about 97 per cent of Nigerian communities still use firewood.

She described the situation as alarming.

Dia made this known on Thursday at a two-day National Stakeholders Consultative Workshop on the inclusion of agroforestry and land use into the National Policy on Environment in Keffi, Nasarawa.

She said the fact that people cut down trees for firewood had degraded the land and exposed it to so many other factors which were affecting the sustainability of the environment and thereby affecting food security.

She said there was need to find a solution to it in other to minimise the effect of cutting down trees on the availability of food in future.

According to her, UNDP-GEF project on fostering sustainability and resilience for food security which is being implemented in seven states Kano, Katsina, Benue, Nasarawa, Gombe, Jigawa and Adamawa has done a lot to train women and youths on sustainable energy.

“We have provided an alternative form of energy for them and taught them how to make it and this has helped to generate income for them and better improved their livelihood and produce food in a sustainable manner.

“We have taught them how to use residue from their farms and also taught them how to make energy-efficient stoves and also to market it, ” she said.

Dia said that UNDP-GEF with the efforts of farmers in some of the beneficiaries states had planted more than  30,000 tree seedlings in those communities and ensured that the trees grew and survived.

“Our farmers had given half of their land for agroforestry purposes and for the survival of the trees, we ensured that wells were dug so that during the dry season, the planted seedlings could be watered throughout the dry season period.

“We thereby calling for climate-smart agriculture for production of food and at the same time looking after the environment to ensure that our land is not degraded.

She said UNDP-GEF had trained farmers on many land restoration initiatives that could help restore the land to the original form.