By Edwin Philip
Nasarawa State Government said the ban on cutting down trees in the forest and public places for the purpose of making charcoal is still active and attracts severe penalties in order to curb the effects of climate change, which has led to extreme weather conditions and environmental degradation.
This was revealed by Barrister Ede Yahaya Yakubu, the permanent secretary of the Nasarawa State Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, while speaking to journalists in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, on Wednesday.
The permanent secretary said the ban, which was put in place by the state government, was due to a high level of lumbering activities and the burning of the woods for charcoal, which exposes the environment to excessive heat and pollution from the smoke.
He said, “As per the charcoal ban, you will realise that the whole world is suffering from what is called climate change; climate change is with us, and it is a result of human activities that have intentionally destroyed our environment.”
“The environment is natural; it does not change, but it is our activities that are affecting it negatively. And what we are experiencing now – flooding, hot weather, land degradation – is a result of our activities that have affected the environment negatively,” he said.
According to him, the Ministry of Environment is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the environment is protected and people are safe from environment-related diseases.
“We realised in the past that people devised a culture of making charcoal as a business. It became a business hub, and people exploited our forest.
They deforested our forest; all these trees you are seeing are no longer there. And because of that, our lands became degraded,” he explained.
Barr. Yakubu further emphasised that the Government of Nasarawa State, through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, said that nobody should enter the forest anywhere to produce charcoal, as charcoal as a business has been outlawed.
He added that to enforce the ban, forest guards and other security personnel have been arresting offenders.
“If we don’t do that now, climate change will be worse. Our forest reserves that we are still preserving will be exploited and deforested, and we will be exposed to a lot of dangers,” Yakubu said.
Speaking on replacing the trees that were cut down, the permanent secretary said that in partnership with agencies like Agro Climatic Resilience in Semi Arid Landscape (ACReSAL), a World Bank-sponsored project aimed at land restoration in areas that have been degraded and forests that have been exploited.
“We are now trying to replant trees to bring back a green environment. You will recall that during the last World Environment Day, celebrated in Nasarawa State about two months ago, we deliberately planted trees. “You can see the trees we planted within the Secretariat premises as a result of that,” he said.
He, however, said that during the last environment, the ministry visited some schools to educate students on how to plant trees in school and to extend that culture to their villages and homes.
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