President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said Nigeria has successfully forested over 6,191,363 hectares of land through the green bond project.
A statement by the President’s media aide, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Monday, said the president was speaking at the Summit of Heads of State and Government 15th Conference of the Parties (Cop15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
According to the president, Nigeria is targeting to increase the nation’s forest cover to 25 per cent in line with global best practices.
Buhari noted that the 25 percent target was in fulfilment of a pledge at the 74th Session of the United Nations General assembly in September, 2019 of planting 25million trees toward achieving restoration of degraded forest reserves and other landscapes nationwide.
”We have also expanded protected areas by creating ten additional National Parks, including two Marine Protected Areas, cutting across the various ecological zones of the country.
“The operationalization of specific intervention programmes and policies in the country have further accelerated the implementation of the ongoing Ogoni Clean-up for restoration of polluted land as well as the implementation of the Great Green Wall programme hinged on ecological restoration and rehabilitation of degraded land.
”The National Agency of the Great Green Wall in Nigeria has made progress in land restoration of over Three Thousand Eight Hundred and Ninety-two hectares of land,’’ he said.
The president noted that his administration, in partnership with the World Bank, expended enormous resources to establish Agricultural Development Programmes in all the 36 States of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
“The ADPs operate the Training and Visit system of unified extension system covering the areas of Crop Production and Protection, Livestock Production and Animal Health, Fisheries, Agro-forestry and Gender related issues in Agriculture popularly referred to as Women-In-Agriculture.
“Furthermore, my administration is equally dedicated to fulfilling the pledge to the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative that seeks to restore 100 million Hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030 in response to the Bonn challenge.
“To date, the initiative has 128 million hectares in pledges from 32 African countries. In 2017, Nigeria committed to restore 4 million hectares of degraded forest landscapes under the AFR100 initiative.
”So far, over 555,480 hectares of land restoration have been recorded, including the planting of 15million tree seedlings covering over Twelve Thousand, Five Hundred Hectares of deforested lands,’’ he added.
On finance, Buhari said, domestically, Nigeria made efforts for funding a pipeline of projects in the path to a greener economy by issuing its first and second Sovereign Green Bonds.
According to the Nigerian leader, so far two rounds of the green bond have successfully been executed.
”The first round of the green bond amounted to $27.3 million, the second amounted to more than $41 million.
”We are currently on the verge of launching the third green bond to the tune of $68.7 million.
”Through the instrumentality of the green bond programme, innovative funding streams are being unlocked in order to finance environmentally and climate friendly projects with focus on both adaptation and mitigation,’’ he said.
The president reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to the various international treaties and obligations.
He said these include 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Global Forest Goals, United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and Post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Others are the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and the 2021 Glasgow commitment to half deforestation by 2030 among others.
The president called on the international community to pay more attention on the war between Russia and Ukraine, which would hurt the efforts of a more peaceful world and aspirations for a healthy society.
“Permit me to conclude by noting that, while we remain committed to global aspirations of a healthy and productive society, we cannot collectively tackle the problems of drought and desertification without a peaceful world.
“We therefore, call for a ceasefire and cessation of conflicts where they exist and especially the Russian – Ukraine war. We call on all the parties to return to the negotiation table with a view to putting an end to this needless conflict,’’ he added.
According to the president, Nigeria has also established a National Forestry Trust Fund aimed at improving afforestation programmes in the country.
He said the fund was also to ensure sustainable financing from non-government sources for the restoration of Nigeria’s forest estates and reserves and production of landscapes in order to achieve significant increase in forest cover.
He said an early drought warning system that involves local people in designing, implementing and managing of natural resources conservation programmes for combating desertification and ameliorating the effects of drought had been put in place.
The president thanked President Alassane Ouattara of Cote D’Ivoire, and people of Cote D’Ivoire, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Antonio Guterres, and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Mr Ibrahim Thiaw and his team, for the organization of the event. (NAN)
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