Hunger looms as harvesting in Nigeria’s forests soars

 

Tayo Olanipekun

Indiscriminate harvesting of forest produce will increase the level of poverty accompanied with food shortages in Nigeria and unless something drastic is done about it, the nation will miss out on the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This is owing to the illegal logging activities causing a yearly loss of 400,000 hectares of arable lands as well as the lure of the quick cash offered by loggers which is keeping thousands of youths of productive age from activities that can contribute to food production and economic growth.

With the rapid loss of forest cover yearly, food production, secure environment and rural livelihood are under a serious threat, putting the survival of millions in the most populous African country in peril, according to a Professor of Forest Economics at the University of Ibadan, Professor Labode Popoola.

The scholar said Nigeria with a land mass of 923,678km square now has its forest area on a continuous decline. “In the 1900s, the area under forest was 971km square or 0.01 per cent with a remarkable increase to 9,342km square or 10 per cent in the 1970s,”he added.

A recent visit to parts of Taraba State in northern Nigeria and some parts of the south west of Nigeria showed that because the extraction activities in Nigerian forest remain largely uncontrolled, there have been tradeoffs between forestry and agriculture as also exemplified by the meagre but quick cash that young and energetic youths are promised in the illegal logging business and of course, the fact that the basic capital requirement common to both forest and farming is the land.

It was observed that a large number of youths in that part of the country were willing to offer themselves for a day job of wanton felling of trees, valued at about N500 (less than US$2) and would rather not engage in any other form of business in the predominantly agrarian community.

Analysts believe this accounted for the reason Nigeria missed its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 25 per cent forest cover in 2015. Harvesting in the nation’s forests on the two basic fronts of timber and non-timber has since continued unabated as structures put in place by the law to regulate forest operations are not effective, further exacerbating the conflict between food production and forestry.

Femi Bankole who lives in the northern part of Oyo State shares this belief and likened logging to ready cow milk, “whereas able bodied youth in search of easy cash often redirect energy that would have been useful in raising the cow itself (Agriculture) to logging, which in effect affects food security.”

He added that illegal logging is both poverty-driven and a driver of poverty “because individuals in logging business seek quick cash to get by and at the same time, they fail to pursue sustainable livelihood.”

Professor Popoola added that Nigerian forest cover has now dropped drastically to 46,542.14km square representing a mere 4.05 per cent of Nigeria’s land mass due to logging activities, saying it is “sadly difficult to capture the data of forest harvest in the nation’s GDP due to poor regulation.”

A data from the Chinese Customs, however, shows that from a net importer of timber in 2011 and a marginal exporter of rosewood logs in 2013, posting a mere 30,866 metric tons, Nigeria was by the end of 2014, exporting 242,203 metric tons of rosewood to China, an 18 fold increase.

Also, the data reveals that by the end of 2015, Nigeria had become the single largest exporter of the ornate logs to China, accounting for 45 per cent of total imports to the country, meaning that by the end of 2015, 30 containers (20 ft) of rosewood were leaving Nigerian ports for China every day.

• A significant leap in the quantity of a single category of wood shipped outside the country within two years

In the light of this, a forester,  Stephen Ayeni, said since yields of agricultural crops are optimum within certain temperature range, by contributing to global warming through deforestation, yields from crops will decrease terribly, if farming is not totally impossible, as already witnessed in parts of southern Africa due to El Nino.

He said with the scale of harvesting and the mechanical requirements for timber extraction from the wild, the resulting noise from the use of power chainsaws in the forest for tree felling has also been reported as one of the factors responsible for panic migration and reduction in the presence of wild animals in the forest.

Ayeni said logging does to the forests and arable land and other life forms in them what demolition does to the residential buildings. The use of heavy duty machines for timber extraction also said compresses the soil and affects water percolation, thus leading to run offs and erosion of topsoil that should enhance agricultural yields.

The financial gains from logging of woods from Nigeria forests for exportation and local use as fuel wood (Charcoal) and furniture making have been largely unsustainable, observe experts, with a negative impact on the environment and food production in a growing economy such as Nigeria.

Findings also showed that in few states of the Federation where logging is banned such as Taraba and Cross River, illegal loggers usually find their ways around the business with the connivance of under remunerated and disenchanted forest guards.

In Taraba State, particularly, a community forest assessment conducted in 2015 showed an alarming situation in the state’s forest estate, being continuously depleted in a fast rising deforestation rate in the state annually.

In states such as Kogi, Ekiti and Ondo where permit is required to fell trees from the forest, logging still goes on freely illegally with little or no revenue to the states’ coffers and without official sanctions. For the most part, loggers do not plant trees in replacement of the harvest, a situation environmentalists say contributes to harsh climatic conditions and impacts negatively on food security at a time the nation strongly believes that agriculture can revive its economy following the dwindling fortunes of crude oil.

Drop in agricultural yields occasioned by environmental factors and the desire of the youths, especially those in the agrarian communities, for quick cash from logging has also manifested in drastic drop in food production in the country, according to latest statistics.

Nigeria’s cocoa production dropped by 5.2 per cent, from 248,000 metric tons in the 2013/2014 planting season to 235,000 metric tons in the 2014/2015 season said the Cacao Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN).

• Decline in the production of one farm produce, cocoa

According to the report, the ages of the trees are going down and production is declining due to aging trees that are not replaced and illegal mining on cocoa farms. This is in spite of the government’s introduction of improved seedlings.