Planting Trees is the Easy Part

Done properly tree planting is a hope filled expression of love for nature. But making a hole in the ground and dropping in the seedling is only the beginning. Nearly all planted trees require years of care including watering, weeding and even fencing to become established. Ill-conceived mass tree planting efforts are failing in Nigeria and worldwide because of failure to plan for this aftercare and other issues like using the wrong species in the wrong place. This is but one misunderstanding regarding tree planting and the environment.

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Planting and forgetting is not enough: the Nigeria story

KANO, 8 April 2008 (IRIN) - Of the 50 million seedlings planted every year in the 11 northern Nigeria states worst effected by desertification, 37.5 million wither and die within two months, environmental officials say.

"The 12.5 million seedlings that make it to maturity are not enough to create a deforestation-reforestation equilibrium, especially given the fact that a large number of the trees that grow are later chopped down," Kabiru Yammama of the National Forest Conservation Council of Nigeria [NFCCN] told IRIN.

People in the north use an estimates 40.5 million tonnes of firewood each year, he said. At the same time, the desert is encroaching at an estimated annual rate of between 8 and 30 hectares in the 11 states, which are Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi.

Around 35 percent of the arable land there has been overtaken by desert in the last 50 years, he added

Read on

Planting and forgetting is not enough: the Nigeria story

KANO, 8 April 2008 (IRIN) - Of the 50 million seedlings planted every year in the 11 northern Nigeria states worst effected by desertification, 37.5 million wither and die within two months, environmental officials say.

"The 12.5 million seedlings that make it to maturity are not enough to create a deforestation-reforestation equilibrium, especially given the fact that a large number of the trees that grow are later chopped down," Kabiru Yammama of the National Forest Conservation Council of Nigeria [NFCCN] told IRIN.

People in the north use an estimates 40.5 million tonnes of firewood each year, he said. At the same time, the desert is encroaching at an estimated annual rate of between 8 and 30 hectares in the 11 states, which are Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi.

Around 35 percent of the arable land there has been overtaken by desert in the last 50 years, he added

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