Students raise medicinal plants to avert deforestation

Director of the state Department of Reforestation Agroforestry, Non Timer Forest Products and Medicinal Plants (RANM), Mr. Effiong Ekpenyong Bassey, said that the students, 20 in number, were trained on how to avert deforestation and conserve the forests to sustain mankind.“The Cross River State Forestry Commission has trained over 20 students of different tertiary institutions […]

Director of the state Department of Reforestation Agroforestry, Non Timer Forest Products and Medicinal Plants (RANM), Mr. Effiong Ekpenyong Bassey, said that the students, 20 in number, were trained on how to avert deforestation and conserve the forests to sustain mankind.
“The Cross River State Forestry Commission has trained over 20 students of different tertiary institutions across the country. We saw the need to encourage them to join the campaign of discouraging people from cutting down trees but to continually plant new ones so that mankind would not be direly affected,” he said.
Bassey said the students were trained on nursery techniques, how to write technical reports, field reports and nursery record keeping, leadership qualities, site observation and target setting.
The students were divided into groups to exercise working experience, documentation and fence construction to protect the nursery seedlings.
One of the beneficiaries of the training, Anietie Eno of the Department of Botany and Ecological Studies, Faculty of Science, University of Uyo, said he has acquired skills that would be useful to him in his studies.