Mr John Gaul-Lebo, Speaker of the Cross River House of Assembly, has advocated the use of customary practices to check deforestation in the country.
Gaul-Lebo said this when Dr Alice Enwu, the state Commissioner for Climate Change and Forestry, paid him a courtesy visit in his office on Monday in Calabar.
The Commissioner was accompanied on the visit by a team from the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD+).
The Speaker lamented the increasing rate of deforestation in the state due to excessive mining activities.
He urged the commissioner and the UN-REDD+ team to adopt forest preservation and restoration as a primary strategy to curb the excesses of climate change.
“I am calling for sustained customary practices to check deforestation in the state and country at large.
“ I wish to assure you that the assembly would come up with legislation that would allow the use of customary practices to check deforestation.
“We will continue to liaise with the state ministry of Climate Change and Forestry to ensure that our forests are preserved accordingly,’’ he said.
Speaking earlier, Enwu said that their visit was to implore the assembly to enact a legislation that would further help save and restore the forest.
She observed that Cross River, which is the pilot state for the UN-REDD+ programme due to its enormous virgin rain forest, must preserve its vast forest resources.
“Our visit today is to appeal to you and your assembly members to enact legislation that would preserve, save and restore our virgin forest,’’ she said.