Asma’u Yahaya, Wife of Gombe State Governor, and Chairperson of Northern States Governors’ Wives Forum has on Wednesday harped the importance of trees to provision of food, well-being.
She disclosed that there was need to populate the region with trees in order to mitigate the effect of desert encroachment.
She made these disclosures at Government Girls Secondary School Doma, during a tree planting campaign.
PERISCOPE NIGERIA reports that the event with the theme ‘Greening, for food and shelter’, marked the completion of the Forum’s quarterly meeting held in Gombe.
Wives of Governors of Katsina, Niger, Taraba, Zamfara, Bauchi, Kaduna, Sokoto, Plateau, Borno, Jigawa, Kogi, Nasarawa, Adamawa all planted trees to demonstrate the Forum’s drive.
She said, “Gathering to plant trees is a form of social dedication. It has been established that trees can save lives through the food they provide, the shade they produce, the shelter they provide for birds and small animals and the aesthetics they give to the appearance of the landscape.
“This realisation gives credence to the theme of this tree planting exercise ‘greening, for food and shelter’. As we all know our region the Northern Nigeria is vulnerable to erosion and desert encroachment, I believe we are all witness to these.”
While decrying the impact to depletion of resources, Yahaya added, “These have impacted on the economy of many households therefore the support we give today to plant trees is our modest effort to restore hope and contribute to the restoration of 1million hectares of degraded land in the region under the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes Project.”
She encouraged individual participation in tree planting saying, “I will like to use this moment to encourage everyone especially school age children to cultivate the habit of planting trees as a source of food, nutrients, and shelter for both human and animals. I feel duty bound to task every human to play active role in planting and caring for trees.”
On his part, Project Coordinator of Gombe ACreSAL, Dr Sani Jauro, lauded the government for its support.
Jauro urged other state governments to give similar support to their state ACReSAL, “Since the project is implemented in 19 northern states including Federal Capital Territory Abuja.”
