Desmond Majekodunmi is an environmentalist, a farmer and the chief executive officer of Lufasi Nature Park. Majekodunmi tells JOSEPHINE OKOJIE, in this interview, that judicious use of Nigeria’s ecological funds would help reduce the impact of climate change.
What is the impact of climate change on agriculture?
Climate change is brought about by global warming and its now recognised and acknowledged as the most pressing and serious issue mankind has ever faced and this climate change is brought about by man’s activities causing global warming. The global warming is brought about by man’s activities interfering with the perfect system that a perfect God had put in place to sustain life on this planet. This earth is the only planet that has the capability of sustaining life because it has been perfectly nip together and there is a perfect ratio of gasses on earth that helps to maintain life and a specific range of heat depression.
These gasses are numerous and one of them is carbon dioxide. We are putting far too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and part of earth’s perfect nature of absorbing the carbon dioxide is the green vegetation, particularly the forest that can sequel carbon in multi layers. But we are particularly diminishing the forests which are put in place to help absorbed the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and also the essential giver of oxygen, so the global warming which is causing climate change is man-made and we have been told by majority of scientists that if we allow it to continue in this way much longer, we have increase the temperature of nature earth by almost one degree, we have upset the balance of carbon dioxide from 280 parts per million(ppm) to slightly over 400ppm. The reality of the situation is quite grave and that is why the scientists are telling us that if we don’t control this, very soon the situation would become unstoppable and catastrophic.
One of the ways the catastrophe will affect us is the agricultural sector, you have far more droughts coming in making it impossible to grow anything, seasons that are no longer regular, rains coming at a time when it’s supposed to be dry, harmatan coming at the wrong time or not coming at all or coming in tremendous extent that it drives desertification. All these have tremendous negative impact on food security. Nigeria and most African countries are very vulnerable to global warming having desert areas, heavy rainfall creating massive erosions and scary is the ocean rise for West Africa nations. Our coast is a very low land coast and the seas are rising. So if we allow this to continue it will be a catastrophe and the whole development especially in Lekki would all be wiped out. We need to have a total rethink of our attitude towards nature to save our planet. The environment is our ecological life support system.
Is there a climate change connection with the herders/farmers conflicts in Nigeria?
There are different things involved in the herders/farmers conflicts. The conflict is to a degree politicised and hijacked by unsavoury elements. But the major driving cause is the deterioration of the desert areas. The areas which used to have fertile lands are now becoming deserts very rapidly. A lot of the herdsmen are from these areas, who are now migrating to the other regions of the country, putting more pressure on the fertile areas. We have had interventions against diversification in the past but the kind of corruption that has contaminated some Nigerians to perpetuate against a desert war of greenness to keep back the desert is enormous. I can even conceive the kind of greed involved in it. These set of people are condemning millions of people to a terrible existence. If we have been making judicious use of the ecological funds it would have slowed down the pressure of the herdsmen.
Is Nigeria being a signatory to Paris Climate Accord a right step to tackle the issue?
It is not nearly enough but it is a good step in the right direction. In the past we were not addressing it in this way. It is only the current administration that has seriously addressed it. The big question is where has the ecology fund gone to over the years. Ecology fund is massive amount of money on a yearly basis and so little of it has been spent addressing climate change and environmental issues. There is a lot more that needs to be done not just the Nigeria government but globally. Rwanda has picked up very well in managing its environment and Kenya has always been very good with her environment. 90 percent of their environment is agriculture and eco-tourism. They have jut banned the use of plastics bags across the country. Nigeria has one of the fastest deforestation rates in the whole world and we use to have a lot of really good prime forest. But we are seeing a lot of young people in Nigeria that are ensuring that the environments are protected.
There have been high rate of illegal falling of trees in Nigeria. How can Nigeria tackle the issue of deforestation?
Nigerians have to come with a mind-set and an understanding that the forests are the only sure protection of preventing climate change from becoming unstoppable catastrophic. Definitely, we have to rapidly reduce our carbon emissions and if we do this without regenerating our forest, we would lose the battle against climate change. Our leaders have to get this into their minds that Nigeria is not what its use to be where we have about 50 percent forest cover but now we have about five percent of original forest level. The forest cover is one of the essential ways we can protect the future of our children not only is it the big buffer against climate change but also the repository of biodiversity. So many species of animals, insects, flowers, plants among others, resides in the tropical forest. What right do we have to drive an animal or a creation that we cannot create into extinction?
What is climate mitigation and adaptation?
Mitigation is stopping climate change from happening that is not doing that which is causing the problem while adaptation is being lazy or slow to do or I did not care enough to do what I was meant to do and when it happens I do things to address the impact. On a more practical term, water is rising in Lagos and we want to adapt to it we put a plug barrels all over the place.
What is the Climate outlook for 2018?
I am very optimistic that we are moving in the right direction. Singing the Paris agreement and would be more encouraged when there is more accountability of the ecology fund. I believe it will be a game changer in 2018.
