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By Kelechi Nwaucha
Women, youths and chiefs in Okwuzi and Erema, two rural communities in Ogba/Ndoni/Egbema Local Government Area of Rivers State, on Thursday became beneficiaries of a campaign against deforestation and its subsequent impact on climate change.
The campaign, embarked on by Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, with support from Women Environmental Program (WEP), which ran from July 11 to 12, 2024, sought to train the women and other community members on the evils of deforestation and the need to conserve forest resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
Program Officer at Kebetkache, Idongesit Alexander, said the training, tagged ‘Community Dialogue on Forest Conservation and Training on Construction of Wood-Efficient Stove in Okwuzi and Erema Communities,’ was to create awareness among community members on the importance of forest resources and the need to conserve them, adding that this had become necessary given the growing rate of deforestation in the country.
“The dialogue is necessary because most people don’t know how to conserve forests. They keep on cutting trees. When they cut the trees, they don’t replace. So we are telling them that if they cut one tree, they plant three or more trees in the community. All these impact on climate change.
“We know that trees release oxygen for us and absorbs carbon dioxide. So, if there is no tree, we will breath carbon dioxide. The tree needs to give us the oxygen to breathe. This explains the importance of trees, and why we should plant new ones,” she said, while stressing the health implications of deforestation on human life.
While acknowledging the eagerness of the community women to learn how to mitigate the impact of deforestation, Alexander said “most of the women have a good idea of what a forest is, but they do not know the importance of this to man. So, as we go, from community to community, they learn the importance of trees around them and how they can conserve the forest they have in their community.
“After today, we will monitor and see if they will plant more trees, as Okwuzi community promised. Where they require support, we will provide the seedlings for them to plant. What we want is a cleaner, greener and safer environment for them to live in,” she said.
Explaining the impact of deforestation to a gathering of Okwuzi women, chiefs and youths at the Civic Centre, resource person, Nkem Odoya, dwelt on the need to ensure sustainability in the maintenance of forest resources.
This message, she reinforced before another gathering of women, men and elders at the Chief’s Compound at Erema, while stressing the benefits of forest resources to man, which she said include the provision of food, materials for housing, employment and even tourism.
Odoya said training women and other community members in rural areas on conserving forest resources is important “because of the impact of climate change. We want the community people to understand that climate change is real and enormous and we are living with it.
“So it is high time for us to begin to see ways we can mitigate the impact in our own domains, especially by creating awareness on forests, sustainability, planting of trees, restoration of degraded lands through tree planting.”
Odoya said sustainability in forest management “is very important because if you don’t preserve what you have, if you lose it, you can never have it again. It’s important that when you talk about sustainability you’re talking of preservation. It is not that you’re not going to take out of it, but that you preserve it in such a way that you can always have something to take out at any point in time when you need it, not just for you alone but for the future generation. The importance is that you use today you use tomorrow and then you also reserve for the unborn.”
Noting the importance of conservation for the local community, she said the benefits are enormous. “One, the forest is made up of trees, animals, and water. All these natural components of the forest have one service or the other they render in a way that we benefit from them.
“For instance, talking of the waters. The fish is breeding in the water, and then we also fish. Fishes are sources of protein to humans and to other animals. We eat the fish as food. Even the animals that live in the forest, we also feed from. They feed from the plants and man also feeds from it. And the plant itself, the role that the plant plays, there is no other animal or anything created that can trap the sun energy, convert it and use it to produce their own food.
“In the process of doing that, they trap carbon. They take away carbon from the air. And then the quantity of carbon that is being emitted by human activity is so much so that the trees and the plants around take off the carbon from the air. But if we cut down the trees, we reduce the level of the sequestration of carbon around our environment.”
Linking deforestation to climate change, Odoya explained that “When trees remove carbon from the air, we are talking of greenhouse gas. The greenhouse gas, the greatest percentage is carbon.
“I want them (the community women) to go away with the understanding that: One, trees are very significant. Two, whenever they want to build their house, you can build your house and still retain the trees that were existing in that environment before you started building your structure. You can selectively cut down some of the trees without destroying the entire vegetation.”
Coordinator, Peace Point Development Foundation, Umo Isua-Ikoh, while explaining the concept behind the wood efficient stove to community members in Erema and Okwuzi, said the essence of the training is to encourage them “to conserve the forest so that they reduce the amount of firewood they use in cooking.
“This fuel wood efficient stove can use two to three woods to cook large pots of food. The stove uses less firewood than the usual one. In fact, you can use three sticks of firewood to cook large pots for any occasion.”
Explaining that the stove had been proven to be successful in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states, Isua-Ikoh said “we started in 2018 in Cross River State, Barekom. We extended to various communities in Akwa Ibom. The people are making use of it and giving testimony.
“My aim is to impact knowledge. I will be very happy if it is possible to move around all the communities in the Niger Delta. It will help me as an environmentalist to conserve the forest. Because when you see people cutting down wood, cutting down trees in the name of soil wood, it disturbs us. It’s against our conservation policies,” he said.
Isua-Ikoh urged governments at all levels on the need to conserve forests, adding that this can be done “If we can train communities to produce this (stove) themselves. I want to also bring to your notice, the stove comes with very less smoke, which impacts less on the women who use it. So if government can make facilities for more communities to be trained, it will reduce forest degradation, it will also improve the health of our women.”
Commending Kebetkache for the training, Chief Deacon Clement Awurulor, Eze Udo 1 of Okwuzi, said “We have learnt that we can bring back forest to our communities by planting trees, mangoes and other trees. We also know that when the forest is around us, those things that we were getting in the past, we will now start to get them again.
“We appreciate your visit because a lot of things which we have forgotten, we now remember them again that we could do it. And two, the oven or what the oven we saw, you promise that you will bring it to us to teach us on how to do it. We are happy and we are now waiting to hear from you when you will come. Now we will start to put them into practice at least we have mango trees, pears, we can start now to plant them because we have known the benefit of it through the through your visit.”
Traditional Ruler at Erema, HRH Eze Osah Alexander, Eze Agbna II of Erema, “I’m happy for what you have taught us, telling us that we should reserve trees, it helps us, it brings fresh air to us, that we should not clear all the trees. Also going to animal too, we should eat the mature ones, leave the young ones, so that our children too can. Secondly, this stove that he has shown us, how to use this saw dust to cook.
“We are proud of hearing all these things, and I thank God that you have come, but one thing that I would say is that, you should come more, come with materials, so that we can learn, we can learn how to do all these things, it will help us.”
A community woman from Okwuzi, Mrs Peace Mgbenwa, said “The stove is very very good for us because you see things are getting tough every day. People don’t have money for buying of a kerosene or refilling gas. That money will be served for another thing so it’s something that will also embrace.
“This training has made my people now to know the importance of forest. You know we have forest but we don’t know that there are people that will come to ask us how we are keeping our forest or how we are managing it. So since we have seen that there is need for it, it will now make people now to be anxious of how to save the forest. They have known that it’s not every tree that you will cut in the forest or even around the house, that there is need for us to plant trees around our house to make our environment a better place,” she said.
