Forest development: Directors task FG

Directors of all southern states Forestry Departments have urged the federal government to make budgetary allocation toward forestry development.Mr Falusi Albert, spokesman of the group, said the directors made the resolution during a stakeholder’s workshop tagged, ‘Awareness Raising on Forest Instrument.’Albert, who is the Director, Department of Forestry in Ondo State, said the directors met […]

Directors of all southern states Forestry Departments have urged the federal government to make budgetary allocation toward forestry development.
Mr Falusi Albert, spokesman of the group, said the directors made the resolution during a stakeholder’s workshop tagged, ‘Awareness Raising on Forest Instrument.’
Albert, who is the Director, Department of Forestry in Ondo State, said the directors met in Akure and resolved that the federal government should devote equal attention to deforestation as it was doing for desertification in the North.
He added that there is no federal government project on forestry in the entire South, but money is being directed towards desertification in the North. “We have agreed that the situation should be addressed urgently and adequate fund released to fight deforestation in the South,” he said.
He also said that deforestation is occasioned by encroachment, Indian hemp planters and land for agriculture, among other factors. “It is the timber supply that sustains the entire country and it is from the South. So, it will not be good if we lose this advantage and Nigeria starts importing timber. Now is the time to act.
“We are calling the attention of federal government to rise up to the occasion by attending to issues of forestry and aggressive actions should be taken against deforestation to serve the interest of the nation,” Albert said.
In a related development, the Director of Forestry in the Bayelsa State Ministry of Environment, Chief Josiah Claude Eze, has lamented the poor attention given to forestry by the state government.
He said the development accounts for why the once flourishing six forest reserves owned by the state government are now facing extinction.
‘’These reserves are seriously degraded by indiscriminate logging and bush burning because nobody cares for them,’’ he said in an interview with Daily Trust.
Eze also said that sometimes forestry is omitted in the state annual budget. For instance, he said, during the budget defense this year by the Ministry of Environment, the Chairman of the House of Assembly Committee on Environment told him that the present administration is not interested in conservation for now.
“So if I show you the budget that has been approved now, you will pity me upon all the struggles and efforts I have been making for the sector,” he said, adding that the government prefers spending huge sums of money on season’s decorations rather than investing in real forestry that will last for years.
The director said following persistent pressure from him, the State Executive Council recently approved the recruitment of 200 staff for the Forestry Department that had been seriously under staffed.
However, he said, only 162 are currently going through the process of final engagement.