By
Babangida Galleon
Adamawa State Government has reaffirmed its decision to ban cutting down of trees in the state.
The state commissioner , ministry of environment , Muhammed Sadiq Mohammed stated this while declaring open a five day training on climate change awareness campaign organized by the northeast development commission, in Yola the Adamawa state capital.
Adamawa State commissioner for environment, Mohammed Sadiq Mohammed who was represented by the Head of administration ministry of environment, Hosea Mapasa Jime, said Adamawa state and the Northeast region in its entirety is facing numerous environmental challenges hence the need for the ban on cutting down of trees in the state which he said will serve as a measure of preventing environmental degradation.
” already the ministry have team of enforcement , arrests have been made and the ministry is planning awareness and hopefully sooner or later this challenges would be overcome”
Mohammed Sadiq said the workshop came at the right time considering the challenges being faced as a result of climate change reiterating the state government’s readiness to key into activities that involves awareness and trainings on issues like this.
The commissioner commended the Northeast development commission for organizing the workshop which he said will go a long way in addressing challenges related to climate change.
He therefore urged the participants to pay attention to all the presentations during the training and use the acquired knowledge in proffering solutions to climate change and environmental degradation.
Speaking on the relevance of the workshop, both the senior manager, Northeast development commission, Sufyan Bukar and the state coordinator , Fatima Bakari Said one of the core mandates of the commission is to address environmental and ecological problems which is included in the programs line up of the northeast stabilization development master plan that are initiated in order to tackle such challenges.
” every program that is going to be lined up in the northeastern states is in alignment with all the programs of the northeast stabilization development ”
” one of the pillars of the northeast development master plan is to have a protected environment in the northeast zone and this are programs that are developed by the commission to address those challenges ”
According to them, there are workshops for training of youths on waste collection, enhanced scavenging, and recycling of waste plastic, training of women on the use of energy efficient stove, training on fabrication of energy efficient stove and briquette production, watershed management training for professional artisans and self-help groups and training on renewable energy for youth empowerment programmes that are concurrently taking place in various locations across the state.
” in each centre there are one hundred participants, except for the fabrication training where we have only seventy women”
Presenting paper on the effects of climate change, a resource person, Ahmed Halilu Abba of the Modibbo Adama University, Yola, said people must develop the habit of planting trees in order to save the environment, stressing that there’s need for stringent measures by authorities concerned to ensure that the right thing is done.
” the effects of climate change have no barrier that is why a lot is spent on environment conservation programs”
While advising governments on the need to construct buffer dams that will contain excess water whenever they are released in order to avoid flooding, Ahmed Halilu equally advised the people to desist from cutting down trees in the name of making ends meet as those practices only lead to environmental degradation
Some of the participants who spoke to Radio Nigeria expressed optimism that the acquired knowledge at the end of the training will help them in enlightening the general public on the effects of climate change as well as help authorities in providing solutions that will help to mitigate climate change.
