As we keep beckoning desertification

With eleven days to the 2026 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, a detailed media report published within the week indicates that the continued increase in the price of cooking gas has pushed many Nigerians to resort to using charcoal for cooking. Charcoal is sourced from trees. The more trees we lose to charcoal production, the quicker the land becomes open to desertification.

Desertification is the process a once fertile or healthy land becomes degraded often as a result of drought, deforestation or over-farming. Desertification could also occur due to climate change. Desertification happens when nutrients in the soil become so few that the soil itself is no longer fertile, becoming arid.  Desertification affects areas known as drylands, which are common in Africa and Asia. Drylands make up around 40 percent of the land on earth and are home to approximately 2 billion people. Desertification has affected an estimated 10-20 percent of drylands. It could lead to famine when people are unable to grow crops.

The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is a United Nations (UN) event marked on June 17 annually to promote awareness on desertification with a view to supporting efforts at combating it. Established in 1994, this year’s Desertification and Drought Day puts rangelands at the center of global attention with a theme, “Rangelands: Recognize. Respect. Restore.” Up to half of the world’s rangelands are degraded or at risk, with serious consequences for food and water security, biodiversity, climate resilience and rural livelihoods. The Day seeks to develop sustainable land management as well as protect the environment. Because human life depends on the land, it is paramount for mankind to care much about it and the way we treat or manage it.

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Unfortunately, the economy of many developing countries in Africa including Nigeria has made the underprivileged class to turn tree felling for charcoal (as a major source of cooking energy) into a money-spinning business. Indeed, the sale of charcoal is making waves in Rivers, Bayelsa, Borno, and many other northern states of the federation. The tree fellers are, by this reckless act, culpable for the unceasing massive decimation of their spick-and-span forests; all for the sake of wood-fuel since they are predominantly dependent on this “biggest dirty energy source.”

This detrimental non-renewable energy resource is a major source of cooking energy for two-thirds of low-income households in Africa. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Africa loses four million hectares of her land mass to deforestation annually. Beyond the places where tree felling is a ‘career’, widespread deforestation has put the lives of all living creatures and even future generations in jeopardy.

The far-reaching damages of desertification and drought are already being witnessed in the African continent including Nigeria where some of the consequential effects being suffered include devastating annual floods, damages to agricultural produce, hunger, farmer-herder conflicts, and outbreak of water-borne diseases. The surface waters such as rivers, lakes, ponds, creeks, streams and lagoons are now drying out. The shrinking of Lake Chad by 90 percent is a classic example.

Concerning the rising cost of cooking gas, the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) recently said marketers are grappling with soaring depot prices, supply constraints, logistics challenges and rising operational costs. According to NALPGAM, marketers currently pay between N25.2 million and N26.2 million for 20 metric tons of LPG, depending on location, a development that has significantly increased the cost of supplying the product to consumers.

NALPGAM noted that the rising cost of LPG has imposed severe hardship on households, food vendors and small businesses that rely on cooking gas for their daily operations; warning that many families could be compelled to abandon LPG and return to traditional cooking fuels such as firewood and charcoal if prices continue to rise beyond their purchasing power.

Aside of reversing the progress made through public enlightenments to promote cleaner and safer cooking energy across the country, the phenomenon if not addressed with effective policies would put the country’s vegetation, human existence, and wild life under critical threat. A country with so much excess of gas that it has been unable to stop gas flaring should have no reason to justify persistent human activities that are strong recipes for desertification.

Furthermore, women who are the major users of charcoal risk health challenges because of their cooking activities in the kitchen; exposing them to respiratory diseases, carbon monoxide poisoning as they also risk cancer of the lung. Like I’ve always mentioned amusingly on this page each time the discourse on factors that lead to desertification come up especially as it relates to the massive tree felling in all parts of the country, we should be prepared to receive and play host to monkeys, gorillas, hyenas, lions, cheetahs, cobras and pythons after we have finished destroying their habitat. The only option that would be left for these wild animals and reptiles would be our homes.

Because of the huge number of those who survive on charcoal and firewood production from tree felling for livelihood, the attempt to end or even discourage the menace is a matter that was allowed to go beyond what traditional rulers can handle. Now, each of the three tiers of government must be seen to be proactive with dissuasive policies backed by functional laws or Acts of the parliament including severe sanctions that would deter offenders that break tree-felling laws.

To stop beckoning at desertification, the federal government is encouraged to provide interventions that would stablise cooking gas prices in order to save our land and environmental resources. This may include an improvement on logistics for transporting, production, and storage of the LPG to make it affordable. In addition, Nigeria as a government should scale up national efforts to support the Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI), set up and designed by the African Union to mitigate and tackle desertification, land degradation and climate breakdown. May Allah guide relevant authorities to preserve man’s physical environment from all forms of artificial threats in order to save the lives of this and unborn generations, Amin.

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