Nigeria Must Plant 350m Trees Yearly to Combat Deforestation – NCF

The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) has said Nigeria must plant over 350 million trees annually to combat deforestation.

Specifically, the Director-General, NCF, Dr Muhtari Aminu-Kano, stated this at the 20th memorial lecture in honour of Chief Lawal Edu, Nigeria’s foremost environmental advocate, in Lagos.

Aminu-Kano explained that Nigeria was losing 350,000 to 400,000 hectares of forest yearly, saying the situation poses a lot of consequences to climate change and rises temperature levels.

He said, “We have to plant many hectares in order to stand still. And we can just aim to stand still at five per cent of our forests the way we are. ”But even if we are to stand still, 350,000 hectares of forest land will require 350 million trees per year for us to remain where we are.

“So, you can see that we need to plant more than 350 million trees if we want to begin to increase our forest cover at all,” Aminu-Kano added.

Agro Nigeria