NIGERIA: The desert is fast encroaching but why?
“Deforestation constitutes 75 percent of the environmental problems in northern Nigeria
The increasing need for wood fuel for domestic use has caused the rapid depleting of trees which has… caused increasing havoc on the environment and put farming activities at great risk,
Yammama said the population burns over 40.5 million tonnes of firewood each year which destroys over 400,000 hectares of forest.
and dunes are encroaching at a rate of 30 hectares a year, taking over [entire] villages
The symptoms are erosion, rain shortages and drought, said Basiru Buwa Adamu, Kano state director of afforestation, adding that the livelihoods of over 55 million people are threatened, more than the combined population of Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mauritania.
The forests in northern Nigeria have almost vanished and lumberjacks keep moving steadily southwards. Nigeria has the world's highest deforestation rate of primary forests
clipped from: www.irinnews.org