The Executive Director, Climate Africa Media Initiative Centre (CAMIC), Mr. Aliu Akoshile, has identified tree planting as a veritable strategy for the Federal Government to create jobs and empower Nigerians.
Akoshile, who is also the Editor-in-Chief of NatureNews, Africa’s No. 1 environment newspaper, stated this at the weekend in an exclusive interview with New Telegraph newspaper.
He said the government could use it as a programme for poverty eradication and economic advancement, while urging the Federal Government to have a holistic programme and targets that can be cascaded to state and local governments for effective and efficient implementation.
He noted that his organisation, NatureNews, planned to spearhead a kind of national campaign to plant 10 billion trees by the 2035, adding that state governments, corporate organisation had also announced their different tree planting targets.
He said: “Tree planting campaign can be used to drive youth and women empowerment. This is different from general benefits such as climate change mitigation. Government has always been saying they want to take the youth out of poverty.
“They want to empower the youth. Tree planting is a veritable opportunity or project which the government can use to drive capacity building among the youths and also to empower them. Planting, maintaining and monitoring, the government can engage the youths.
“We have about 4,000 political wards in the country, in every ward, you have about 100 youths. So technically it is an opportunity for government to drive empowerment. A lot of skills can be gotten from that.
“We have agricultural institute and tertiary institutions that have agricultural department, they can be engaged to train the youths on forestry, horticulture. Youths can be making money out of it. Youths can sell seedlings.
“We can have a day declared as a national day for tree planting whereby everybody is involved. The public and private sectors, the military and paramilitary agents, educational and financial institutions a are involved.
“We have not addressed tree planting the way it should. Everybody is working in silos. There must be a coordination of tree planting. What individual companies, state government, Federal Government and agencies are doing, everybody is taking targets.
“For instance the federal Ministry of Environment said they want to do 6million trees. But what NatureNews is trying to do is to have a kind of marshal plan.
“It is not a personal target per say but to spearhead a kind of national campaign to plant 10 billion trees by 2035 so that all these pockets of targets can be accommodated within that global target for the nation.
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“I find it strange that the Federal Ministry of Environment will target six million. This is quite low. It should have taken a higher target and then the private sector can key in from that.”
He stated that tree planting had many dimensions.
He added that until the issue of climate change came on board, planting trees was for ornamental purposes but given the recent predicaments that every nation is facing worldwide, due to climate change and human activities, it has become important that a holistic review of the purpose of tree planting should be taken.
According to him, it can be used to provide raw materials for pharmaceutical industries. He said, if well executed, trees when they grow could be used for real estate and energy purposes.
He, however, warned that grown trees must not be used indiscriminately but must be more replanted.
Akoshile said: “Before now it used to be like ornamental tree planting. Everybody, big man, will have a garden with imported flowers. But the reality today is that we have to go beyond that.
“Trees can be planted even for economic benefits. For instance, now if you plant trees, naturally, you can use trees for even food and to promote tourism.
“You can also use trees even recreation. People come to gardens, you know, there are gardens all over the world. Even abroad, people go to gardens for relaxation.
“The economic benefit is there. it can be used to reduce rate of poverty because when people plant economic trees, it is different from ornamental tree. That means you plant coconuts, mangoes and other economic trees.
“At the end of the day, people make money and in this era when government is saying they want to take mil – lions of people out of poverty, how we do it? It is not by sharing palliatives. That is not what will take people out of poverty. It is by empowering them.
“Even asking people to plant trees may look insignificant but there are people who have planted trees and made money when they sold them and their outputs.
“Tree planting has social and economic trees. You have more space for urban development. They can also stimulate local economics. You have mangoes, oranges, cocoa nut tress etc in some area and when people come there, they buy.”
