By Obiabin Onukwugha
A non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Lokiaka Community Development Centre has planted three million six hundred mangroves to restore degraded lands in Ogoniland and target planting five million mangroves to restore the biodiversity of the Niger Delta region.
Executive Director of Lokiaka, Martha Agbani, revealed this during a programme to flag-off the planting of one million mangroves in Teenama community, Gokana local government area of Rivers State.
She said the initiative is in line with the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration torestore the livelihoods of the people that have been impacted by the disappearance of mangroves in the region as a result of years of crude oil spills and pollution.
“This is the fourth forest in Ogoni that we have entered to work. We started from Yaataa community, we went to Bodo, we got to Bomu, now we are here. What we usually do is that we train and handover because we need sustainability in whatever we are doing.
“We have already done two million six hundred mangroves, so if we do this, it’s going to be three million six hundred mangroves that we would be restoring in Ogoniland alone,” she said.
She further explained that the organisation is working with locals, especially women from the area, saying they are the ones that interacts most with the environment.
Agbani also stated that the community people are participating in the planting of the mangroves, saying that “since the community don’t know about it and for our own project to be sustainable, we bring in the locals to be part of it”.
“What we are doing now is to restore and we are not just restoring the ecosystem, we are also restoring the culture, we are also restoring their livelihoods, we are also restoring homes. We as Lokiaka, we are women working for women to live a better life and part of our vision is to make sure that people are involved in their own development,” she added.
She stressed further saying, “We work in any area that we have mangrove swamp forests, especially degraded ones. As you can see here, nepal palm has overtaken this area. So we are here to restore their livelihoods, we are here to restore lost biodiversity of this area and today we intend to plant a minimum of one hundred and fifty thousand mangroves here.
“We have earmarked one million mangroves for this very forest and we are doing this to key into what we have as our mandate for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. So Lokiaka will be restoring five million mangroves in the Niger Delta region.
A participant of the initiative and a native of the community, Mrs Barisi Dumbor, commended the organisation for the project, and called for its expansion to involve more women and communities.
“I thank Lokiaka for making me what I am today because I have achieved a lot from them. I have been trained to nurse mangroves, how to plant trees and I use to sell them to sustain my family. As we are doing this, I pray that many women will benefit from this project,” she stated