Gilbert Ekugbe
The Minister of Environment, Mr. Mohammed Abdullahi, has called on national and international stakeholders on the need to increase investment in tree planting in order to ameliorate the effects of climate change, especially on food production.
Abdullahi, who presided over the inauguration ceremony of the new governing council on the National Forestry Trust Fund (NFTF) in Abuja, identified increased investments in tree planting as well as technical capacity building for stakeholders and stronger collaboration with national and international partners as vital ingredients in achieving a virile forestry sector.
He, however, said that the federal government has made a number of moves to resolve these issues through policy formulations and strengthening as well as changes in institutional and legal frameworks.
According to him, the NFTF was established to tackle the challenges militating against forestry development and management in Nigeria.
He stated specifically that the fund was created to address inadequate funding within the forestry sector by providing additional and complementary sources of funding to supplement government’s budgets.
Abdullahi said: “It envisages funding support from international donors, corporate organisations, private sector, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs) and individual resources for sustenance and to leveraging the seed fund from the CITES permit to carry out forestry development activities in the past few years.”
