Experts express concern over high rate of deforestation

By Seye Adeniyi

Farmers need more enlightenment on
adverse effects of deforestation
and bush burning

Nigeria has once again been rated as one coun try in the world losing its forest faster than can be imagined, even more than many other African countries.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in a report, said Africa lost over nine per cent of its trees between 1990 and 2005 to logging majorly. This represents over half of global forest loss, despite the fact that African continent accounts for just 16 per cent of global forest.

The report stated that countries like Angola, Cameroon, Democrat Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe are also losing their forest fast. Latin America and the Caribbean, homes to about a quarter of the world’s forest cover, similarly lost 0.5 per cent of its forest annually between 2000 and 2005. In 1990s, the forest lost was 0.46 per cent, meaning that the problem is gaining ascendancy every year. In these countries identified by FAO, the conversion of forest to agriculture was the leading cause of deforestation.

It will be recalled that recently, the president of the Nigeria Academy of Science, Emeritus Professor David Ukali, also alerted the federal government on the danger of the increasing rate of deforestation in different parts of the country and the socio economic, environmental and the health effects of this action. He said though modern world economy now hinged on the fossil fuel that has various environmental effects, there however now a paradigm shift to the development of the agricultural sector.

According to him, many developed nations of the world have realised that when agriculture is well practised, it will guarantee a better socio economic development and at the same time protect the environment. He said weather related disasters are occurring more intensely in these days because of environmental abuse in various forms activities such as logging, bush-burning, deforestationand uncontrolled soil erosion.“Nigeria is hearing all the disasters happening in different part of the world as a result of all the problems highlighted above, yet, we close our eyes and ears to them pretending as if we are not concerned whereas, we are highly culpable and prone to them even more than many African countries knowing fully well that the rate of deforestation is very high in the country,” he stated.

The professor of forest ecology said African continents is more vulnerable to the effects of climate change and deforestation , adding that these human activities are posing a serious threat to agricultural development and if not checked adversely affect our socioeconomic development. He said, the country’s forest have been abused through deliberate human activities, adding that another thing that is of great concern to experts is the unabated logging, deforestation and bush burning that has contributed to the release of dangerous gases like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides , thus causing climate changes.

Prof. Ukali also warned that many states as a result are likely to be highly flooded because their marine ecosystem are been threatened through land degradation. There is increasing sea level rise and regular ocean surge in states like Lagos, Bayelsa and Rivers. Increasing temperature as a result of logging, deforestation, desertification, bush-burning, etc, will affects most of our crops. To guard against this impending problem, Nigeria need to develop adaptation and survival strategies to cope with the continous self-inflicted problems related to deforestation, flooding, ocean surge, soil erosion, increasing climate warming and degradation, he warned.

In a related development, Chief Bisi Rodipe, a major stakeholder in the forest industry also warned against continous deforestation and illegal felling of trees. The chairman of Bisrod company recently in Ogun state called on the government to come up with a more punitive action against illegal tree feelers destroying the nation’s forests. He said if the nation’s forest is well protected and conserved, the country stand to gain millions of naira from abundant resources embedded in the forest.

Nigeria, possible reservoir of bird flu - FAO

By Sade Oguntola

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have warned that the avian influenza virus in circulation in Nigeria is a serious risk for the virus to become well-established in the region and so a potential source of infection for neighboring countries despite intense efforts from the Nigerian government to control the disease in poultry, The organisation in a release said, the recent avian influenza outbreaks in 15 countries demonstrated that the H5N1 virus remains a global threat , which requires close monitoring and strong control efforts.

Since December 2007, Bangladesh, Benin, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Viet Nam have confirmed new H5N1 outbreaks in poultry stocks. Except for a few cases in wild birds in China, Poland and United Kingdom, most of the confirmed outbreaks occurred in domestic poultry, including chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks. FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech, said globally much progress has been achieved in keeping the H5N1 avian influenza virus under control and most countries are better prepared today to deal with the disease than they were three years ago.

Though he said that “surveillance, early detection and immediate response have improved and many newly infected countries have managed to eliminate the virus from poultry,” but, the H5N1 avian influenza crisis is far from over and remains particularly worrying in Indonesia, Bangladesh and Egypt, where the virus has become deeply entrenched despite major control efforts. He said countries should continue to keep a close eye on the evolving situation, adding that much as the virus has not become more contagious to humans, it has managed to persist in parts of Asia, Africa and probably Europe and so warned that it could still trigger a human influenza pandemic.

Commenting on individual countries, FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer in the news release said that India is struggling to keep the worst-ever avian influenza outbreak in West Bengal under control. According to him, Indonesia remains one of the worst affected countries with 31 out of its 33 provinces infected since 2004 that are heavily affected, adding that the continuing number of human cases is given cause for concern.

Domenech said the observed new H5N1 avian influenza virus strains that recently emerged in Indonesia is an indication that vaccines currently in use may not be fully protecting poultry against the disease, thus pointing to the need for more investigations and the development of better poultry vaccines. The situation in Bangladesh and Egypt, he said also suggested that control efforts need to be strengthened. Bangladesh had 21 out of its 64 districts infected with H5N1 and the situation seems to be worsening. The disease appears to be endemic in the country, and surveillance and control campaigns have so far not succeeded in interrupting virus transmission between provinces. In Egypt, “The reporting of new outbreaks in poultry, disinfection, culling, movement control and biosecurity on farms and markets remain insufficient and need to be improved. Vaccination campaigns had been generally successful on commercial farms, but not among small-scale producers,” Domenech said.

Following the initial success of vaccination on industrial poultry farms in Egypt, the control measures may have slackened. The disease was thus given an opportunity to reappear in the industrial sector, seemingly resulting in a wider redistribution throughout the country. While FAO will be working with the government of Egypt in strengthening all aspects of disease detection, control and communication, he said the possibility of potential change of virus strains should be further investigated. With the detection and immediate response in all countries to new avian influenza outbreaks, especially in the Europe, Germany, Poland, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom is very effective, Domenech said this had helped restrict the spread of virus infections to wild birds. This, he said also raised questions about other ways of virus transmission and potential reservoirs of infection, like in free ranging ducks.

He said, “Surveillance and immediate control interventions, biosecurity, proper vaccination and culling and the strengthening of veterinary services are key elements for successful H5N1 avian influenza control campaigns” and that this had really helped in more than 50 countries FAO had helped to control and eliminate the disease.