By Grace Samuel
The Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF) and the Stanbic IBTC Bank have partnered to plant 30,000 trees across 10 states of the country as part of the Green Recovery Nigeria initiative.
The flag-off of the tree planting exercise took place recently, at the Lekki Conservation Centre (LCC) in Lagos.
The Director-General of the NCF, Dr Joseph Onoja, thanked the Stanbic IBTC Bank for believing in the vision of restoring Nigeria’s forest cover to 25 per cent.
He noted that the activities of man had impacted negatively on the environment, thus making nature to fight back, especially as shown in the coastal lines of the Lekki Ajah corridor12.
He said that Nigeria had suffered greatly in terms of loss of forest cover, which had declined to less than 10 per cent compared to the 1960s when Nigeria got independence12.
He expressed his profound gratitude to Stanbic IBTC Bank and said that he would continue to portray the bank as an environmentally responsible entity.
It is an initiative of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) and an intervention model to institute local actions that seek to retain a significant proportion of Nigeria’s landmass under forest.
The goal of the initiative is to help increase forest cover from its current state of about 4-7% to 25% by 2047.
The initiative also aims to improve biodiversity, reduce transmission of zoonotic diseases, and enhance livelihoods of rural communities.
The initiative was launched in 2019 and has partnered with various stakeholders, including the Stanbic IBTC Bank, to plant 30,000 trees across 10 states of the country in 2020.
The tree planting exercise was flagged off at the Lekki Conservation Centre (LCC) in Lagos on September 29, 2020.
The LCC is one of the projects of the NCF that showcases the rich biodiversity of the coastal ecosystem.
The NCF is a non-governmental organization that works to protect the environment and transform livelihood through its programmes on forest conservation, species conservation, environmental education, policy advocacy, and community development.
The NCF also collaborates with other international organizations, such as the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations, to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to the environment.