The Federal Government has announced plans to engage no fewer than 10,000 youths and retirees in the planting of six million trees across the country to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

This was made known by the Minister of State for Environment and Ecological Management, Dr Iziaq Salako, in an exclusive interview with PUNCH Healthwise.

He explained that the programme is meant to create jobs for the unemployed and provide economic benefits to retired persons, while also addressing the pressing issue of environmental degradation.

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Alausa further said that the tree planting programme would be carried out in phases, with a focus on areas that have been affected by deforestation and desertification.

According to the World Health Organisation, climate change is impacting human lives and health in a variety of ways.

WHO noted that it threatens the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply, and safe shelter – and has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health.

The global health body projected that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress alone.

The global health organisation stressed that greenhouse gas emissions that result from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels are major contributors to both climate change and air pollution.

Speaking exclusively with PUNCH Healthwise, the minister said the government plans to plant not less than six million trees to help absorb greenhouse gases, improve air quality, and mitigate land degradation, flooding, and erosion in the country.

Salako stated that the programme would involve a wide range of tree species, including indigenous and exotic varieties suitable for Nigeria’s different ecological zones.

He added that the tree planting exercise would also promote agroforestry and promote bamboo as an alternative to trees.

The minister, however, called on all Nigerians to support the programme by planting trees in their homes and communities.

“Every tree counts in the fight against climate change. This year alone, the mandate of the ministry given by Mr President is to ensure that we plant at least six million trees for 2024. And we have designed our programmes to ensure that we achieve this.

“The agencies are going to plant; we have the Forest Research Institute of Nigeria in Ibadan, the Great Greenwald, the ministries, and then we have a special intervention project by Mr President that is also going to plant trees to achieve large-scale tree planting.

“We are also going to use tree planting to promote agroforestry and promote bamboo as an alternative to trees. So you see us doing all kinds of programmes like that to address land degradation.

“For the tree planting, we are going to first engage youth in tree planting. We are going to engage retirees and agencies in tree-planting exercises. And also we are going to support the state ministries to plant trees.

“We are going to produce seedlings that can be donated to states and interested non-governmental organisations that have track records of successful tree planting programmes.

“The whole idea is to train youth to be able to raise seedlings on their own and also be able to plant those trees, nurture them to adulthood, and be compensated as they go along doing that by the federal government.”

The minister also said that the FG would deploy technology to monitor the effectiveness of the programme.

He said, “We are going to have a lot of technology deployed. It is not going to be an analogue kind of thing. You know these days with the Internet, a lot of things can happen.

“So, we would do a lot of virtual training for youth who register for that programme. And then we will also do virtual monitoring of some activities by using geo-location images that can be located to affirm if the trees were planted.

“Those are the kinds of programmes that we are bringing on board going forward to ensure that we arrest the challenge of land degradation.

“We engage youths, we engage retirees, and we increase the forest copper for Nigeria. At the end of the day, we are looking at creating between 5, 000 to 10, 000 jobs from this particular intervention.

“For a year, you also have those youth and retirees paid some token every month to ensure that the trees they plant are also nurtured to ensure that they germinate,” he stated.

- Punch