By Obiabin Onukwugha
A non governmental organisation, Lokiaka Community Development Centre, has established a fruit trees garden at Community Secondary School, Wiiyakara in Khana local government area of Rivers State, where 100 fruit trees are planted.
This comes as the NGO launched a Schools Environment and Health Club and carried out sensitisation on the importance of tree plantinng, tagged: “Cut one tree, plant three trees” in Wiiyakara community. During the exercise, the students drawn from Kono and Wiiyakara Community Secondary Schools were taught how to plant and nurture the trees so that they can survive.
The move, is part of the Lokiaka Development Centre contribution to mitigating climate change and reduce hunger among school children in the area. The fruit trees include species of African mango (ogbono), date, guava, avocado pear, among others carefully nurtured by the centre.
Addressing the school children during the planting exercise on Monday, Executive Director of Lokiaka Development Centre, Matha Agbane stated that apart from the date, other fruits used to be in Ogoniland but have gone extinct because of years of pollution and climate change impacts. She said the organisation will be planting a minimum of one hundred fruits trees in the community and in the school.
Aagbani said: “We are here today to establish a fruit garden and Environment and Health club in your school. We are doing this as an organization as part of our contribution to mitigating climate change. We are also doing this to support you as children so that in the nearest future you will have fruits to eat when you are here and you will not be too hungry. We chose those in JSS1 and SSS1 so that by the next two or three years of your stay in this School and when you come to school and you are hungry you should have what to eat. We are bringing in very special varieties of plants. We are bringing in what we normally call ‘ogbono’, we will alos be planting guava for you, avocado pear, and date. Date is abit alien to the Ogoni environment but it’s a very nutritional fruit. These days we are hearing issues about eye and sugar diabetes.”
She emphasised that it is when people are sure of what they breath into their nostrils from the environment, in the food they eat that we can say we have a sustainable environment.
Agbani also pointed out that the project is part of a linking and learning initiative by Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA), across Africa being currently implemented in Uganda and Nigeria. She said research carried out revealed massive tree cutting in the Niger Delta region, which necessitated the need to carry out a campaign to restore lost forests.
“This is a combination of our linking and learning initiative that we’ve been carrying out across Africa. We have the Ugandan Team and we in Nigeria carrying out a learning exchange and of course what we have been looking out are issues that have to do with environmental justice and we’ve done a survey before now, after which we carried out linking and learning for Ugandan government which is an emerging oil and gas economy and part of what we gathered from the research we carried out was that there are lots of tree cutting in the Niger Delta area. And that of Uganda the EACOP project that they want to have will affect both water, forests and land.
“So we have to carry out the campaign here because we know that there is over harvesting of trees in the Niger Delta area. And we are looking at Ogoni environment that has high level of petroleum hydrocarbons. So we need trees to sequester these carbons out of the environment.
“So now, Lokiaka is into mangrove restoration in Ogoni land specifically and by extension we are going to do that in the Niger Delta area. We don’t only restore mangrove, we also rainforest trees. We also work on other terrestrial area. This is part of it and we chose this school, CSS Wiiyakara as a community school to carry out this rally with Ogoni women from this axis because they are from the forest area. And we said instead of planting just trees, let’s plant fruit trees. That is to help reduce poverty and hunger in the land, in the sense that a child in the school will not be totally hungry when these fruits are there and they are ripe or mature for harvesting children will have food to eat as long as the trees grow on this soil.
“We are also bringing in aforestation into the environment. You can see that this is an area that is not directly oil bearing although they have some gas here, but you can see that the place is very hot. So they need trees for their survival and children need good learning environment, they need to have that conducive learning environment and that is why we are here to see how we can add more coolness to this environment and that is the essence of what we are doing.
“And then we are also saying that beyond just coming in and planting, we need a sustainable tree planting. We need a sustainable environment. So we are also establishing an Environment and Health club in this very school so that children from time to time will be very conscious of their environment and know what to do. So what we are doing now is to set a pace and see how we can actually have direct contact with these children and build them up, thereby leaving no one behind,” she stated.
One of the students, whom spoke with NatureNews, Rejoice Victor, a JSS3 student of Community Secondary School, Kono, expressed joy at partaking in planting the garden. She said: “I’m so happy because trees used to bring breeze and some times when the sun is very hot some of us will go under tree and stay and sometimes when we go to the hospital doctor will say that go and eat fruit that is why I like it when they are planting fruits.
“I even when to learn how to plant trees so that when I grow up I will be planting trees in my garden. If I was to be in this school I would be coming to nurture the garden but I’m living at a distance from here that is two hours and no one will help me with transport so that I will be coming here, else if I see someone who will be paying transport for me I will be coming here to nurture the trees.”