Dr Bakari Wadinga, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Environment, has stressed the need for tree planting following its importance in provision of oxygen as a necessity for life.
Wadinga made the call during a familiarisation visit to the National Park Service Headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Wadinga recently took over from Mrs Ibunkun Odesote as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry.
Quoting environmental science expert, he said that there were just two ways of creating oxygen either by tree planting or the scientific way of sinking carbon in the high sea, which he noted was more expensive.
The permanent secretary also called on the Conservator-General, National Park Service, Dr Ibrahim Goni, to ensure continuous training for staff members to add value to the service and be recognised.
“You must acquire the skills; you have to send your staff on training if you want to add value to your job.
“It is when you do that you can articulate memo, convince the authorities that you have value to add out there.
“Apart from the non-visible, you have the visible, the flora and fauna. Just get a logical starting point and bring onto your balance sheet those values.
“It will speak good of you and you will be able to get more funding both locally and globally. If you do not do that nobody will see your visibility outside here,” she said.
Wadinga assured Goni that he would interact further with him to provide the needed assistance to the park.
Earlier, the Conservator-General said many people do not know much about the National Park, which led to the public sensitisation programme to create awareness on their activities.
He said that the organisation would continue to partner with government and NGOs to get the needed resources to carry out its activities.
“Government alone cannot do all that is required to re-position this body, so we need the support from international donors and corporate bodies to collaborate with us.’’
Goni said the service was leveraging on the provision of the green bond to plant trees in the national park.
He listed some of the constraints of the service to include insecurity, poor road network, proximity of banks to the parks, inadequate infrastructure and communication gadgets.
He further named illegal logging, grazing, hunting, mining and farming; water poisoning/fishing; organised crime, banditry, kidnapping and cattle rustling among other challenges facing national parks.
“Others include maiming and killing of rangers by poachers and herdsmen, population explosion and high expectation from Support Zone Communities,” he said.(NAN)
