An environmentalist, Mr Emmanuel Emechete, has called for the planting of more trees in the country to balance the ecosystem.
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Emechete, a climate change enthusiast made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
The environmentalist said it was pertinent to plant more trees to avert imbalance in the country’s ecosphere and to address various environmental pollutions.
“This constant tree felling has caused an imbalance in the environmental makeup, hence planting trees is the work our industrial generation left for us to do; we are just trying to undo their errors.
“When we do not imbibe the culture of tree planting we reduce the number of oxygen producers and in turn increase the number of carbon dioxide producers through gas emissions.
“Trees take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen and animal take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide. Tree planting helps in balancing the ecosystem.
“What tree planting will do is to help increase the number of oxygen producers, thus making the air cleaner and safer.
“There is so much work left for the next generation as a result of our indiscriminate air pollution, plastic pollution, single-use plastic and nylon bags littered everywhere among others.
“With tree planting, we will help bring things toward normal, we may not be able to achieve exactly what we used to have but we can tend towards it.
“That is the way it was meant to be before we came in with our anthropogenic actives, cutting down trees in the name of modernisation and development (not sustainable Development),” he said.
Emechete said that the Federal Government had already put policies in place to ensure more trees were planted as he called for a quick expedition of action on the policies.
“The present plan by the Nigeria Government to plant 25million trees says there is a policy for tree planting already put in place by the government.
“This in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge during the 74th UNGA on the planting of 25 million trees, and the Committee on Afforestation was inaugurated to carry out the assignment.
“While Nigeria is setting up a community for 25 million trees; Ethiopia planted 353 in one day campaign. We need to stop paying lip service to tree planting if we are to save our ecosphere,” Emechete said.
The environmentalist also added that to help Nigerians imbibe the culture of tree planting, advocacy, knowledge and capacity building, helping people to understand the importance of trees that would be planted must be taken seriously.
“If people don’t understand the essence of tree planting they might just end up cutting the trees down even before they have a chance to grow.