Kano to plant one million trees

The Kano state government has launched a statewide one million tree planting campaign across the 44 local councils to mitigate the impact of deforestation and global warming.

The government has also signed a 20 years public-private partnership agreement with a private solid waste management firm to ensure sustainable waste management and build alternative sources of energy.

The state commissioner for the environment, Dr. Kabiru Getso who launched the campaign, disclosed that the government is embarking on massive tree planting in collaboration with Givfree Africa before the rainy season subsides to avert all encumbrances associated with nursing the seedlings.

Dr. Getso said the move comes with a series of government policies and frameworks anchored on environmental safety and sustainability, biodiversity conservation, desertification, pollution control, flood and erosion control.

Getso noted the extreme atmospheric condition, which stood at about 44 degrees celsius in Kano last year, stressing that it was due to inadequate trees. He urged stakeholders to ramp up efforts to achieve the set targets for tree planting.

The commissioner tasked residents to ensure proper personal hygiene and environmental sanitation, avoid open defecation and keep the environment clean of human excreta as well as ensuring safe and clean water to avert new outbreaks of Cholera.

“Government has put in place policies and programs intervention to address myriads of environmental challenges bedeviling the state. We have set up the Kano State Afforestation Agency, to coordinate the planting of trees. We have keyed into the National Green Wall Project where funds and lands for the establishment of community tree nurseries and plantations are provided in the state.

” The government has also provided N500 million counterpart funds as well as an office complex for the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) project. The project areas of intervention include erosion control, watershed management, tree planting, capacity building, and livelihood enhancement. We are also collaborating with the Ecological Fund Office to establish an Integrated Industrial Waste Management Facility at Challawa, Sharada, and Bompai industrial estates.

” Government has drafted the state pollution control bill as well as state forestry bill to enforce compliance to environmental laws. The government has also recruited 1,000 sanitation vanguard to police our environment and ensure strict compliance to environmental regulations”, Getso added.