1,400 Trees Planted to Combat Climate Change in Plateau

The Minister of Defense, Muhammed Badaru, expressed his concern this week for the devastating impacts of climate change.He urgently called for more legislative action and financial commitments to protect the environment.

The Minister through the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Ibrahim Kana spoke on the topic: “Industrialization, Energy Security and Climate Change: Implications for National Security,” at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Plateau State while addressing participants of the Senior Executive Course, SEC 45 during their defence and security studies week.

He advocated that security consequences of abusing the environment be fully integrated into the national security and defence architecture so the negative effects of climate change on national security could be understood and called on government at all levels to “intensify actions in promoting education and monitoring as key intervention strategies for managing climate change.”

“That climate change is real and causing havoc is not in doubt but the efforts by all stakeholders to address the issue is grossly inadequate hence the growing environmental degradation and insecurity in communities”. He said.

To combat these issues, the faith-based organization Centre for Gospel Health and Development (CeGHaD), with the support of the European Union and Christian Blind Mission (CBM), have begun planting approximately 1,400 trees in the Riyom local government area of Plateau State.

These trees were divided among groups from different communities, with instructions to nurture them to maturity in order to combat the negative effects of climate change
Yakubu Dasu, the Programme Director of Enabling Resilience to Climate Change (ER2CC) at CeGHaD, called out human destruction of nature as the cause of climate change, emphasizing the importance of caring for the environment.

“This ER2CC project is a three-year project, we got support from the European Union through CBM. This gathering is for various group leaders, the Village Economy and Social Association, VESA and the Control Disaster Rate Committee, CDRC. We are giving these trees to the various group leaders.

We have created six VESA in four communities in the Riyom local government area and they are to share them with the members of their groups. They can plant the trees in their compound, or their farm”. He said.

“I am assuring you that CeGHaD would monitor the trees where they are planted and how you are taking care of the trees. The reason is that for this particular project, we would be planting for the next three years but we are going to watch if you are faithful with these, we are going to give you more.

Today we are giving you 1,100 trees to plant. The total number of trees to be planted in Riyom this year is 1,400. Today we brought 1,100 trees to share with these groups. We would come to the communities to share more again.” Dasu added.

The Director of Forestry in the State Ministry of Environment, Samuel Gupar extended the government commendation to CeGHaD for the efforts in curbing the negative effects of climate change which is threatening human survival and stressed the gesture is complementing the Government’s efforts in tackling climate change.

Samuel Gupar, the Director of Forestry in the State Ministry of Environment, commended CeGHaD for its efforts in tackling the climate change problem and stressed that these actions complement the Government’s initiatives.

HRH Yakubu Chaimang, the Atta Aten of Ganawuri, expressed regret for the indiscriminate cutting down of trees and pledged to take care of the donated trees.

The Paramount Chief of the Chiefdom, the Atta Aten of Ganawuri, HRH Yakubu Chaimang lamented the indiscriminate felling of trees and promised to nurture the trees as he stated, “Things have become a little bit difficult, if somebody plants the trees, by the next day, someone else will cut them and use for another purpose.

“I believe it is very important to plant these trees so that if one is being cut, then other trees would still be there and by the grace of God we will all benefit by doing it ourselves. This is very useful since it is people from far away that are cooperating with us to ensure that we benefit from this, we will take care of the trees and reap the benefits.” he said.