NAN-AE-8
Climate
By Chukwuemeka Opara
Abakaliki, Oct. 23, 2017 (NAN) An Ebonyi based NGO, Neigbourhhood Environmental Watch Foundation (NEWF) says it has planted 100, 000 tree-crops across the state to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Dr Kelechi Okezie, the Chief Executive of the foundation, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abakaliki on Monday.
He said that it collaborated with relevant agencies to achieve its goals.
According to him, the tree-crops include mangoes, cashews, shrubs, guava, pine-trees, among others are planted under the organisation’s Green Community Re-forestation Project (GCRP).
“We actively involved schools, community leaders and other stakeholders in the planting process because we believe that the fight against climatic change should be holistic.
“We appeal to the government and the private sector to expend adequate resources in mitigating climate in the state and the country to safeguard the environment.
“Relevant authorities should ensure that agro-forestry is practiced by farmers as our tree-planting interventions helped in the reduction of flooding incidents recorded in the state in 2017,” he said.
Okezie said that the country lost over five per cent of its virgin forests annually to deforestation, noting that the development had negative effects on the environment.
“The citizens should be educated on the need to plant new trees whenever they justifiably cut trees as efforts should be made to curb deforestation in the country.
“De-forestation reduces soil fertility which hampers efforts made to revolutionalise agriculture for economic diversification in the country.
“It also affects the prevailing temperature which makes the whether to be unbearably- hot during dry periods and increased rainfall during wet periods,’’ he said.
Okezie remarked that climate was necessitated by human-induced factors such as deforestation, illegal cutting of trees, emission of carbon into the atmosphere, among others.
“Relevant authorities should curb incessant land degradation witnessed in the society, burning of tyres and other unwholesome practices which affect the atmosphere.
“The high rate of flooding witnessed across the country in 2017 was caused by high precipitation, increase in rainfall which makes the soil unable to absorb run-off.
“The flood mainly affected individuals living along the coastlines because they failed to heed to the warning of the National Meteorological Agency to relocate to dryer plains.
“Individuals should heed to the advice from relevant authorities to avoid building on water channels and engaging in practices which block waterways,” he said. (NAN)
RCO/OFN/GY
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Edited by Felix Nwadioh/Grace Yussuf