Has deforestation come to stay?

Nigeria, ranked first in the index, lost just over two million hectares of forest annually, between 2005 and 2010.According to the U.N. FAO, 9.9 per cent or about 9,041,000 ha of Nigeria is forested. Nigeria had 382,000 ha of planted forest.Between 1990 and 2010, Nigeria lost an average of 409,650 ha or 2.38 per cent […]

Nigeria, ranked first in the index, lost just over two million hectares of forest annually, between 2005 and 2010.
According to the U.N. FAO, 9.9 per cent or about 9,041,000 ha of Nigeria is forested. Nigeria had 382,000 ha of planted forest.
Between 1990 and 2010, Nigeria lost an average of 409,650 ha or 2.38 per cent per year. In total, between 1990 and 2010, Nigeria lost 47.5 per cent of its forest cover or around 8,193,000 ha.
Nigeria’s forests contain 1,085 million metric tonnes of carbon in living forest biomass.
Nigeria has some 1,417 known species of amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles according to figures from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Of these, 1.2 per cent is endemic, meaning they exist in no other country, and 3.5 per cent are threatened.
Nigeria is home to, at least, 4,715 species of vascular plants, of which 4.3 per cent are endemic. 3.6 per cent of Nigeria is protected under IUCN categories I-V.
Nigeria is currently exposed to a lot of environmental hazards which, hitherto, the country has no history of, a development experts have linked to increasing human activities, especially deforestation, as more Nigerians go in search of alternative sources of domestic energy.
Today, most Nigerians, even in urban centres, can no longer afford to buy and use kerosene and Liquid Natural Gas as a means for cooking due to its cost, forcing them to rely on firewood and charcoal which is readily available for as low as N50.
As more families utilise charcoal and firewood for their cooking, so is the forest being depleted at an alarming rate.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation in one of its recent report noted that Nigeria was losing its forest cover at an alarming rate and the report was also collaborated by a group of experts at the Nigeria Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), meeting in Abuja recently, which listed firewood as one of the leading drivers of deforestation in the country.
Of the country’s population of over 160 million, about 70 percent live in rural areas and are directly or indirectly dependent on forest resources to meet their domestic energy needs.
The activities of the rural communities in the forest are aggravated by illegal commercial logging.
Observers are of the view that Nigerians have no reason to be using firewood. “We have the financial and human resources to pipe gas into homes for domestic use, we are deforesting the whole of the north through harvesting of wood for fire, and now we are shifting the savannah southwards into the rain forest through logging,” Ochei Mark, a United Nation REDD expert noted.
The question people kept asking in view of the massive deforestation witnessed in all parts of the country is: Do we have laws in place to checkmate the deforestation?
It is worthy of note that the country’s first forestry act was passed by the British colonial authorities in 1937. It established a forest reserve system under which certain areas could be exploited for timber by firms and individuals granted licenses to do so. Replanting was expected to prevent these areas from becoming depleted.
The 1988 National Agricultural Policy further sought to ensure sustainable use of forests, and to expand wooded land to 20 percent of the country’s territory.
While there is currently no law against the felling of trees for firewood except in protected areas, chopping of oil palms and of mango, cashew, cocoa and cola-nut trees is controlled through by-laws because of the economic value of such trees. But, legislation alone has proved unable to protect Nigeria’s forests.
“Here we monitor the forest and if we catch anyone felling trees, we take his details and evidence of the tree he is felling and institute a case against such person at the High Court, “says a regional forest officer in Zamfara.
According to Makinde Pius of the Nigeria Forest Group, the problem of deforestation in Nigeria is not as result of good laws but simply the lack of will and discipline to observe and implement them by those entrusted to do so.
The depletion of forest cover has been especially severe in northern Nigeria, opening the door to soil erosion and desertification. It is widely reported that 350,000 hectares of land in the country are lost to desertification annually.
The forests soak up and lock away large amounts of CO2, helping to act as a brake on climate change. Yet, deforestation is disrupting this cycle and is responsible for, at least, 10 per cent of mankind’s annual greenhouse gas pollution.
The highway between Gusau and Sokoto is dotted with heaps of firewood, a business which is providing sources of livelihood to hundreds of families who are into the trade.
The situation here is terrible, says a motorist who conveys logs from the forest to the highway. “The people have no other work to do and rather than stealing, why not sell firewood,” he asks.
It is too early for government to give up on protecting the forest cover which the country still enjoys. With the myriad of environmental challenges facing the country, it will be advisable that governments, at all levels, come out with legislations that will once and for all bring this illicit act to a stop.