…Take to GESOL: Join the tree planting campaign; plant three where you fell one tree to maintain a green environment, community. GESOL, Green Environmental Solutions Limited…
By Muhammad Auwal
No doubt, rampart felling of trees is among the dangerous activities caused by human beings in our environment that is sending clear danger to the existence of living things collectively.
According to the investigation, 98% of bakeries are using firewood as a source of energy for baking. There are also different kinds of suya joints and local eateries that use firewood for their business.
Adamawa is losing hundreds of its vegetation forest to the activities of firewood and charcoal dealers annually.
However, another silent killer and disaster to our lives and environment, some have put it as worse than woodcutting is the indiscriminate use of Agrochemicals.
In the last five years, farmers in Adamawa state applied not less than three hundred thousand litres of Agrochemicals annually, including some products, which were banned by the federal government because of their hazardous implications on the soil and human lives.
On weekly basis, about four ŧo five trucks full of Agrochemicals are being off-loaded in the state and each truck carries a minimum of 150 cartons of the chemicals. (Herbicides only) excluding pesticides.
One carton contained 12 litres, approximately, 150 cartons x 12 litres = 1,800. Therefore, 5 trucks per week is equal to 9000 litres of chemicals (excluding powder chemicals among others). Multiply it by 4 weeks (one month) 9000 x 4 = 36, 000 litres per month. 36,000 x 12 (months/one year) = 432, 000.
Suffices to say that in the last five years, about two million, one hundred and sixty thousand litres of Agrochemicals were applied on Adamawa soil by farmers.
The number is increasing on a yearly basis due to farmers’ high demand for the chemicals as much as the population growth .
The hazardous heat of the chemicals combined together on soil (environment) is nearly equivalent to one ton of TNT (Nuclear Bomb) is also the reason for excessive heat that is causing rapid desertification encroachment by 2.5 kilometers yearly in the state, from Northern part of the state to Southern part.
The state, due to rapid desertification encroachment is losing its southern vegetation quickly. It is projected that if adequate measures are not holistically taken, by the year 2033, Toungo local government area would begin to experience sandstorm due desertification.
In the last five years, Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, has started experiencing heavy sandstorms, especially during the beginning of rainfall, which mostly come from the northern part of the state due to the consequences of desert encroachment in the state.
Thirteen years back, around 2010, there was no such report of sandstorm in Yola.
In fact , 70 percent of the gazetted grazing and forest reserves in the state have been destroyed by farming and other man made activities such as firewood, charcoal and timber businesses.
While frowning at felling of trees, prohibiting it as well, Adamawa state government ought to consider the hazardous effect of Agrochemicals and find a way of dealing with it.
For the felling of trees as timber, firewood and charcoal, prohibition means hunger to students in boarding schools and to many houses and businesses, the simple solution is to join the GESOL campaign; plant three where you cut one tree.