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Indigenous forests
in Africa are being cut down at an ‘alarming’ rate of about 3.4 million
hectares per year, making the continent the region with the second
highest net annual loss of forests in 2000-2010, United Nation’s Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.

John Peacock,
manager of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) –
Leventis Foundation Project said reforestation and education on the
benefits of conservation would help stop and reclaim Africa’s lost
forest and biodiversity, if necessary authorities could respond to its
safety.

Mr. Peacock who
spoke during the 2010 Open Day held last week added that conservation of
Africa’s forest offers great benefits preserving Africa’s surviving
tropical forests and that planting new trees to replace those lost to
deforestation could help reduce the severity of climate change.

The 2010 Open Day
was marked with the planting of indigenous trees by IITA staff in Ibadan
to help mitigate the effects of climate change and losses in
biodiversity.

Nigeria’s loss

According to the
group, the tree planting came at a time when deforestation rate in
Nigeria has reached a disturbing rate of 3.5% per year, translating to a
loss of350,000-400,000 hectares of forest per year.

In 1976,Nigeria had
23 million hectares of forest but today only 9.6 million hectares
remain, less than 10% of Nigeria’s total land area.Mr. Peacock added
that planting trees is part of a new initiative to restore rainforests
in Nigeria. IITA is also contributing to the important UN-REDD (Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative in
Nigeria.

Through the
IITA-Leventis Project, the team, particularly Olukunle Olasupo and Deni
Bown, have raised over 15,000 seedlings of 33 different species since
February 2010 in preparation for planting next year.“We would like every
family, represented by staff members in IITA, to plant an indigenous
tree next year as part of IITA’s activities to increase the forest
area,” Mr. Peacock said.

Earlier this year,
IITA and partners made effort to raise awareness of the need to preserve
biodiversity-a term that describes the variety of living
organisms-especially in forests that are increasingly lost or
threatened.

Statistics indicate
that Nigeria’s Milicia excelsa (iroko) has become endangered, with about
$100 million worth of Iroko timber illegally poached from remaining
forests last year.

“The unfortunate thing is that these very valuable trees are not being replaced,” he said.