Statistic has showed that in 10 out of the 19 northern states of the country, each year the desert advances another 600 metres further south.
Indeed, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Borno and Yobe are among the worst hit states. Scores of farmers and their families, as should be expected, have already been forced to move off land that has become barren occasioned principally by desertification.
But farmers are not the only ones bearing the brunt of desertification as the nomadic Fulani people are also heading ever further south in hoping of finding better grazing areas for their herds. The loss of arable land and pastures expert say are threatening the economy of this predominantly farming region and the national food supply.
In 2010, the 19 northern governor’s forum organised a summit on desertification and environment specifically to address the menace of desert encroachment and food security in the region and the country at large considering the fact that desert encroachment is threatening the economic survival of both humans and animals in the northern region and by extension.
In the north, desertification has succeeded in increasing the intensity of farmers-Fulani clash. Desert advance has done away with routes established for nomads forcing the pastoralists to move through cultivated land with their livestock.
The farmers are at a loss as to how to protect their crops. Violent confrontations are increasing. Recent, a sizeable part of government official’s working days, in most northern states is spent on adjudicating or at best staving conflict between farmers and nomads-both of who have been prime victims of desert encroachment.
As an environmentalist rightly stated, “What we have today as desertification is man induced, as a result of over grazing, over cultivation, increased bush burning, and deforestation of our reserved areas.”
Indeed, the need for government at all levels to put in place policies and mechanisms to check the excesses of human activity and its impact on environment to make the society a better place cannot be overemphasized.
The Katsina state commissioner for environment, one of the newly established ministries saddled with the responsibilities of addressing the growing environmental challenges facing the state, Alhaji Aminu Ibrahim Safana recently admitted that desert control remained one of the major challenges facing the state even as he said the state was determined to address the challenges of desertification through the introduction of ‘Katsina green initiative.’
Safana told Journalists that the initiative, which is aimed at strengthening afforestation through aggressive campaigns for tree planting” would key into the United Nation’s convention to combat desertification, assuring that “adequate arrangements has been made to ensure the implementation of aggressive desert control strategies so as to mitigate the negative impact of desertification.”
He stressed that the state ministry of environment was collaborating with relevant agencies and sectors “to ensure sustainable environmental management” saying that the new project scheduled to be launched next year, would address the challenges of desertification.
According to Safana, the state government has produced adequate seedlings for planting as part of measures aimed at combating the menace.
Safana who said that the state government is determined to finding lasting solution to the menace of desertification said, “We have to act quickly now as stakeholders to save our environment from the menace of desertification by saying no to deforestation, no to increased bush burning, no to over drafting ground water and increased soil salinity and most importantly, by passing laws and implementing policies to this effect”.
“We are committed to providing adequate support and encouragement to tree planting to control the ravaging effects of desertification and drought. In this context, government will not shirk away from its responsibility of producing seedlings for planting in the shelter belts as part of the forestation programme and land refurbishing and regeneration strategies”, he added.
However, a cross section of residents who spoke to LEADERSHIP described government’s annual tree planting campaigns as exercise in futility as according to them, hardly do the tree get nurtured to maturity as most are left to die-off due to neglect.
“As a policy, government, every year, launch tree planting campaigns where local government are directed to earmarked a piece of land for the ceremonial launch of the exercise.
But beyond this launch, most of these trees are left to die-off due to lack of constant watering, which is essential for the nurturing of trees to maturity”, Musa Garba, an agriculturists with the Katsina State Polytechnic enthused.
Another expert, a geography teacher, Mallam Musa Sadiq noted,? “Desertification, aggravated by climate change, represents one of the greatest environmental challenges facing Nigeria and the most critical consequence of the phenomena in the affected areas is the progressive decline or some time complete loss of productive capacities of natural resources upon which the majority of the population depend on for living”.
It is generally held that current unwholesome land practices were playing a leading role in aggravating desertification and environmental problems in the state and the region as a whole even as most residents attributed the raging desertification to manmade activities and lack of enforcement of existing legislation dealing with environmental management.