Desertification: 40 million threatened Nigerians – FG

The Minister of the Environment, Balarabe Lawal, expressed concern for the current desertification and degradation of the ground, stating that it is threatening the means of existence of over 40 million Nigerians and has already influenced 43% of the total terrestrial mass of the country, about 923,000 square kilometers.

Lawal was talking to Abuja to a national themed dialogue “Restore the earth: unlocking opportunities”.

The event was organized by the Center for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) as part of its climate change project, with the support of the Federal Ministry of the Environment.

The dialogue was held to commemorate the desertification of the world of 2025 and drought (WDD) and the day of sand and dust.

Represented by the permanent secretary of the Ministry, dr. Mahmud Kambari, the minister described the degradation of the ground as a global crisis.

Lawal observed that the degradation of the dry lands had led to the loss of 24 billion tons of fertile soil at a global level, significantly reducing food production and threatening food safety.

Citing the United Nations Convention to combat desertification (UNCD), Lawal said that over two million hectares of land were lost every year due to desertification, degradation of the territory and drought.

“Despite this, it is estimated that 300 million hectares of land will be required to satisfy the food demand by 2030,” he said.

He explained that the 2025 WDD theme underlined the importance of investing in sustainable local management practices to prevent and reverse the degradation of the territory.

The efforts, he said, also faced larger challenges such as economic and food insecurity, water deficiency and climate change.

Lawal stressed that the achievement of Nigeria’s socio-economic growth objectives would not be possible without environmental protection and sustainable management of land and natural resources.

He added that the government was a priority for environmental issues and had developed institutions, policies, action plans, programs and projects aimed at dealing with the degradation of the territory, desertification and related environmental threats.

Even speaking, Mrs. Regina Nwaneri, director of the Department of Desertification, degradation of the territory and drought management, said Nigeria, as part of the UNCD, was engaged in the fight against desertification.

However, he warned that the current Earth’s restoration efforts were not on a sufficient scale to meet urgent national and global needs.

He observed that, despite the projections of the United Nations that a billion dollars was necessary daily from 2025 to 2030 to fight the degradation of the land, the current investments in the restoration efforts were not below this goal.

However, he recognized the investments under the Nigerian government in the restoration and management of drought.

Previously, Ifeanyi Chukwudi, Senior Project Manager at CJID, said that the Center was working with ministries and interested parties to promote scalable and policy -based interventions.

He added that Cjid also supported research and the media to sensitize the challenges of drought and desertification.

“We involved more than 500 journalists throughout Nigeria and in the region of Lake Chad to highlight the earth problems and bring them to the front line for the attention of politicians,” said Chukwudi.

He invited the government to make terrain users responsible, in particular organizations that have extracted natural resources without approval, adequate soil assessments or adherence to regulatory procedures.