Nigeria: Taraba to raise 20m seedlings by 2015, Commissioner

To boost its afforestation programme, the Taraba Government is to raise 20 million seedlings by 2015.
Mr Timothy Kataps, the Commissioner for  Environment and Urban Development, announced this on Thursday in Lankavir  during the official launching of the 2010 Tree Planting Campaign.

He said the campaign  was aimed at achieving sustainable forest conservation, warding off erosion and reducing  the effect of global warming.

The commissioner lamented that hazardous practices like bush burning, overgrazing and  indiscriminate logging had continued unabated in the state.

He said that two  million seedlings, including palm and eucalyptus seeds, were raised for planting in the 16 local government areas of the state this year. In his speech, Mr Adedoye Oye,  who represented the Federal Ministry of Environment, commended the state for being the first  to launch its tree planting campaign this year.
He said the Presidential Initiative on Afforestation would soon be launched across the country.

The programme, he said,  was developed by the Federal Ministry of Environment and the 36 state  governments as an interventionist effort to address the problems of deforestation and desert encroachment.

Oye pledged that the Montane forest in Taraba would be incorporated into  the Federal Ministry of  Environment’s  Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation(REDD+)  Programme.