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Environmentalists decry nation’s high deforestation rate

By Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu and Michael Egbejule, Benin City
05 January 2016   |   4:54 am
ENVIRONMENTALISTS, rights activists as well as key stakeholders drawn from the Niger Delta and other states across the federation at the weekend re-echoed the stance of the late environmental rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa as they vowed to tackle the growing challenge of land grabbing by multinational companies to the detriment of the environment and its…
Amina Mohammed

Amina Mohammed

ENVIRONMENTALISTS, rights activists as well as key stakeholders drawn from the Niger Delta and other states across the federation at the weekend re-echoed the stance of the late environmental rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa as they vowed to tackle the growing challenge of land grabbing by multinational companies to the detriment of the environment and its dwellers. 
 
 
The activists lamented loss of land unjustly in Edo, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers, Rivers and Ekiti states where they said that community leaders and governments in the affected states deceitfully entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with companies operating in their areas and in the process signed off the future of their people. 
  

The stakeholders made their position known at a one-day national conference on the agonies of corporate land grabbers for plantation expansion in Nigeria, with the theme: “Promoting Community-based Advocacy against Land grabbing and Deforestation in Nigeria” organised by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) in collaboration Global Forest Watch in Benin City, Edo State.

In her remarks, the project officer, Forest and Biodiversity, ERA/FoEN, Mrs. Rita Uwaka, said the conference was informed by the apparent observation that “there is a growing trend in our society, especially, in our communities which have forests and large land reserve.”
  

She said it was now becoming attractive for governments to issue land licences to companies from different parts of the world such as Europe, Latin America and the Asian continent, adding that for them, it is a sign of development because when the companies “come to our domain, the people see them as development partners, erroneously thinking they are coming to bring development to enhance the standard of living and employment for our youths and other social-infrastructural amenities. But the reverse is the case.”  

 
Executive Director, ERA/FoEN, Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, raised alarm over the increasing rate of deforestation in Nigeria, describing it as a major environmental problem that is contributing globally to climate change.

He put the rate of deforestation at four per cent, representing a staggering 500,000 hectares of forests’ loss. 
  
 
He said the emergence of land grabbing was not driven by multinational corporations alone but aided by their national with the aim of using external land and water resources to produce crops and food which are exported to the international market rather than for local consumption. 
  

While making a case for the scale up of the activities of small-scale farmers and the need to stop their displacement in favour of big agribusiness, Ojo stressed the need to provide technological and financial support to local farmers through extension services, loans and insurance benefits.

“It will undoubtedly create the food revolution that is required to ensure food surplus.”



He added that the aim of the workshop was to ensure that community forests were continuously managed by community-based management system that ensures the goal of conservation and sustainable development. 
 

“It is important to note that community-based advocacy that is complimented by international effort can bring multinational corporations to account for their corporate impunity and excesses.

“The challenge to us is to be a voice for the impacted community in mobilising for actions, resisting expansion of land grabbing and theft,” Ojo added.

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