Trees our Greatest Allies Against Climate Change:

Killing the Protector

By

Ofoegbu Donald IkennaProgram Coordinator

Heinrich Boell Foundation

What they say about trees!!!

CHAPTER 1

• No matter where you live, trees make your life possible. When a tree is lost anywhere, people feel it everywhere.

• Robert Frost had it right — the woods are lovely, dark and deep. They’re our respite. Our places of peace. Our natural air filters. Our water factories. Our medicine cabinets. We literally can’t live without them.

Why the Hype?

CHAPTER 2

Trees are important tools in the fight against global warming, because

they absorb and store the key greenhouse gas emitted by our cars and power plants - carbon dioxide (CO2), before it has a chance to

reach the upper atmosphere where it can help trap heat around the

Earth’s surface.

Trees and forests are complex ecosystems that are important to the carbon and water cycles that sustain

life on earth. When they are degraded, it can set off a devastating

chain of events both locally and around the world.

To reduce carbon dioxide build-up and its effects on climate change, we can either reduce carbon dioxide emissions (mainly burn less fossil fuels), or we can re-absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

Trees enter the picture here because they can be used to take carbon dioxide out of the air. All

plants make food out of carbon dioxide from the air, water, and solar energy through the process of photosynthesis. This food is then used to make

most of the body of the plant, including roots, leaves, stem or trunk, and flowers and fruit.

While all living plant matter absorbs CO2 as part of photosynthesis, trees process significantly

more than smaller plants due to their large size and extensive root structures.

In essence, trees, as kings of the plant world, have much more “woody biomass” to store CO2 than

smaller plants, and as a result are considered nature’s most efficient “carbon sinks.”

Trees (and shrubs) are unique among plants in that they have a woody stem and roots that get bigger every

year and these woody parts last for decades or even centuries. Since this wood is mainly made of carbon from carbon dioxide, tree stems and roots are good,

long-term storage places for carbon.

Annual plants (such as corn, tomatoes, annual grasses) and many non-woody perennial plants (such as

perennial grasses, clover, alfalfa) are not good places for long-term carbon storage. Most of the carbon

dioxide they absorb is re-released within one to several growing seasons as leaves, stems, and roots die and

decay.

The Betrayal;The Betrayal;What have we done?What have we done?

CHAPTER 2

Killing the Protector: Betraying a friend

As of 2005, Nigeria has the highest rate of deforestation in the world

according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the

United Nations (FAO); The annual rate of deforestation in Nigeria is

3.5%, approximately 350,000-400,000 hectares per year

Between 2000 and 2005, Nigeria lost 55.7% of our primary forests. Forest has been cleared for logging, timber export, subsistence agriculture and notably the collection of wood for fuel which remains problematic in

western Africa.

Over 70% of Nigerian Households

still depend on firewood for

cooking.

The Price of Betrayal

CHAPTER 3

Of all the sources of energy for domestic Of all the sources of energy for domestic cooking, firewood ranks highest when cooking, firewood ranks highest when

compared with gas and kerosene. compared with gas and kerosene. This traditional sources of domestic energy This traditional sources of domestic energy

combined with commercial gas flaring combined with commercial gas flaring continue to contribute significantly to continue to contribute significantly to

environmental pollution and depletion of environmental pollution and depletion of the ozone layer, leading to global warming.the ozone layer, leading to global warming.

OOVER VER 98,000 Women DIE 98,000 Women DIE Yearly from exposure to firewood Yearly from exposure to firewood

smoke. – ICEED smoke. – ICEED (2014)(2014)

DERSERTIFICATION: • A lot of damage has been done to Nigeria’s land through the processes

of deforestation, notably contributing to the overwhelming trend of desertification. Sahara desert is advancing south wards at the rate of 6.0 percent every year. As at 2010, Nigeria lost about 350,000 hectares of land every year to desert encroachment. This has led to demographic displacements in villages across 11 states in the North. It is estimated that Nigeria loses about $5.1billion every year owing to rapid encroachment of drought and desert in most parts of the north. The effects deforestation have taken the form of violence from migrating herdsmen from the north to the south, food shortages and food inflation from drought as well as diseases i.e Meningitis, Malaria, measles and other Heat-related illnesses.

• HEAT WAVE: A study conducted from 1901 to 2005 gathered that there was a temperature increase in Nigeria of 1.1°C, while the global mean temperature increase was only 0.74°C. The northern region of nigeria experiences low rainfall and high temperature that rises up to 45 degrees Celsius. Heat in the desert can be as high as 150 degree Celsius every day.

• DROUGHT: The same study also found in the same period of time that the amount of rainfall in the country decreased by 81mm. It was noticed that both of these trends simultaneously had sharp changes in the 1970s.

• CARBON EMISSION: The carbon emissions from deforestation is also said to account for 53% of the total carbon emissions of Nigeria; from 1990 to 2010 Nigeria nearly halved their amount of Forest Cover, moving from 17,234 to 9041 hectares.

• ENDANGERED SPECIES: Nigeria’s wide biodiversity of 899 species of birds, 274 mammals, 154 reptiles, 53 amphibians and 4,715 species of higher plants have also been affected by the negative impacts of deforestation. The numbers of the rare Cross River gorilla have decreased to around 300 individuals because of poaching by locals and mass habitat destruction

• FLOOD AND EROSION

The Road To Repentance

CHAPTER 4

Step 1: Initiate Tree Planting Acts & Programs Tree Planting Policies and Programs:• Organize tree planting competitions {Biz CSR, Govt, NGOs, Asstns, Schools,

Estates, Communities, Churches, etc}

• Tree planting as a legal requirement or condition or criteria {Before Court marriage, Child Adoption, Award of Government Contracts, political party, formation, etc}

• Tree planting as a part of academic curriculum; certification or admission in all stages and fields of academic learning {primary to tertiary; Sciences to Arts}

• Give trees as gifts• Trees have life, make them your pet.• Have trees as part of public structural designs in award

of public projects• LGAs embark on beatification programs with tree

planting

• Pass bills to limit, if not stop the falling of trees across states especially without replanting.• Initiate court orders; fines and sanctions that

commands offenders to plant trees. i.e. gas flares, estate developers and even illegal loggers, environmental polluters and even traffic offenders.• Encourage and expand use of small

renewable solutions for heating and lighting.

Step 2: Defend the Defender

Need to balance industrialization and

environmental protection.We can have real economic growth and development and

health environment.

Step 3: Industrial morality

• S—Substitute (e.g. Substitute components, technology, inputs/materials, even people for best healthy and sustainable result)

• C—Combine (e.g. What combination of components, technology, services, waste, etc, can provide a reasonable and usable result)

• A—Adapt (e.g., alter, change function, use part of another element)• M—Magnify/Modify (e.g., increase or reduce in scale, change

shape, modify attributes to get useful results)

• P—Put to other uses• E—Eliminate (e.g., remove elements, simplify, reduce to

core functionality)• R—Rearrange/Reverse (e.g., turn inside out or upside

down)

Step 4: Development of a SCAMPER approach to Energy problem solving

ThanThank k

you.you.