Tag Archives: deforestation
Nigeria: Can Bamboo Address Deforestation and Erosion in Nigeria?
BY ALEX ABUTU, 21 AUGUST 2013 Every year, according to statistics from the Centre for International Forestry Research, Africa loses forest cover equal to the size of Switzerland and Nigeria alone is estimated to lose about 350,000 – 4000,000 ha of its forest reserve annually and this is regarded as one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. As the trees across the country vanish, the land dries; the soil erodes and becomes barren leading to low agricultural yield, alarming desert encroachment, desertification and uncontrollable erosion. Experts at a recent meeting on the state of the nation’s forest identified firewood and charcoal as the leading drivers of deforestation but the country lacked alternatives to firewood and charcoal which have become the energy sources for middle class and low income Nigerians especially those in the rural areas. A lot of propositions have been advanced as options government should consider in addressing the drivers of deforestation and this include the need to articulate policy framework that address the out-dated forest laws in operations in the country, better mechanism for the implementation/enforcement of best forest management practices, reduce firewood and charcoal consumption and forest tenure system for local communities. However, Mr Badru Ola Muyideen of the forest department of the Federal Ministry of Environment is of the view that the introduction and massive cultivation of bamboo remained Nigeria’s best option to reduce deforestation, address desertification as well as cushion the impact of climate change on Nigeria. According to him, bamboo can serve as firewood and can be burnt as charcoal. “This way we don’t have to cut down trees which take forever to grow but we can harvest bamboo yearly and use it as we want.” Bamboo is a common plant which the country is currently not exploiting in the quest to address the mirage of environmental challenges confronting the country. Bamboo is a tribe of flowering perennial evergreen plant in the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. In bamboos, the internodal regions of the stem are hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, even of palms and large bamboos, to be columnar rather than tapering. Bamboos are some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Sun-Saharan Africa, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product. Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on Earth, with reported growth rates of 100 cm (39 in) in 24 hours. However, the growth rate is dependent on local soil and climatic conditions, as well as species, and a more typical growth rate for many commonly cultivated bamboos in temperate climates is in the range of 3-10 centimetres per day during the growing period. Some of the largest timber bamboo can grow over 30 m (98 ft) tall, and be as large as 15-20 cm in diameter. However, the size range for mature bamboo is species dependent, with the smallest bamboos reaching only several inches high at maturity. A typical height range that would cover many of the common bamboos grown in the United States is 15-40 feet, depending on species. Bamboo is a kind of grass which explains the speed of growth. This means that there’s lots of it, and when it’s harvested it grows itself back again quickly enough not to leave a dent in the eco-system. Unlike all trees, individual bamboo stems, or culms, emerge from the ground at their full diameter and grow to their full height in a single growing season of three to four months. During these several months, each new shoot grows vertically into a culm with no branching out until the majority of the mature height is reached. Here in Nigeria conscious effort have not been paid to the importance or relevance of bamboo in addressing erosion, desertification nor deforestation. Nigerians still rely heavily on hardwood as source of energy and this according to medical experts is dangerous. It is a women and children’s job to collect firewood and as the demand increases so they have to walk farther distances to find. Most of the firewood cooking is done indoors resulting in air pollution which kills over a million Nigerian women and children annually according to the Bureau of Statistics. Dr Samuel Ike, conservationist said that Nigeria can solve most of the environmental challenges it is facing with the introduction of bamboo into the affroestation programme. “You cut down a hard tree and it takes decades to grow back but cut down a bamboo and before you know it has grown back. Unlike hardwood, bamboo is renewable and regrows after harvesting just as grass regrows after cutting,” he said. According to him, the bamboo roots have the potentials to grab onto the soil and hold it fast, “plant bamboo on a steep slope or riverbank and it prevents mudslides and erosion.” “This is the plant needed for the afforestation programme and even the Great Green Wall project where millions of trees are expected to be planted. A meeting of stakeholders on sustainable development of bamboo and rattan in Nigeria recently urged the federal government to implement a Food and Agriculture Organisation’s recommendation that each country set aside 25 per cent of its total land mass for forest conservation through the establishment of bamboo plantations. According to the stakeholders, such development would ensure that all relevant research institutes in the country work on how the country would benefit maximally from the plant. As the nation move to address flood, erosion and other environmental challenges, the inclusion of bamboo in the aforestation programme would go a long way in saving the soil and provide jobs and incomes for rural dwellers. Continue reading
MEPs To Vote On Biofuels As Study Points To Hunger, Deforestation
Published 10 July 2013 As MEPs prepare to vote on a proposal to curb EU support for biofuels, new research has found that growing fuel crops in place of food automatically creates either hunger or deforestation. According to new research by Tim Searchinger , a Princeton University research scholar and acknowledged biofuels expert, a tragic equation is buried in existing modelling data used by the EU to establish the effects of indirect land use change (ILUC) – the increased CO 2 emissions that displaced agricultural activity may create. When agricultural land that had been used to grow food is given over to growing biofuels, someone somewhere will go hungry – unless previously uncultivated land is taken to grow the displaced food, or yields from existing crops increase commensurately. But “there is extremely little evidence that you will get additional yield gains,” Searchinger said over the phone from New Jersey yesterday (9 July), “and without that you get two bad responses: You have some land expansion, and people eat less.” Searchinger’s reading of one key report produced for the EU by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that of every 100 calories from wheat or maize diverted to food tanks by bioethanol production, 25 calories were not replaced. “If you step back, take the broader view and see that people are going to have to produce 60% more food by 2050 [to feed a growing world population] that we’re not going to be able to feed entirely from yield gain, biofuels will just compound that problem.” European Parliament vote The new analysis, which was number-crunched with the help of the EU’s Joint Research Centre, is being released by Friends of the Earth as the European Parliament’s environment committee prepares to vote on a proposal to curb EU support for biofuels. Friends of the Earth’s biofuels campaigner Robbie Blake called it a “game-changer” Corrine LePage MEP, who is presenting the report to the committee, wants to augment a proposed 5% cap on ‘first generation’ biofuels’ (link) share of the 2020 transport mix with ILUC factors written into statute that distinguish between the best and worst-performing biofuels, for greenhouse gas emissions. Several amendments have been added to the text though, one of which would raise the cap to 6.5%, and the outcome of the vote is thought too close to call. After the vote, it will go to a plenary session on 10 September, before final negotiations with member states begin. LePage sent EurActiv a written reponse to Searchinger’s research, saying: “If these results are validated, they would confirm that the EU demand for biofuels can have very detrimental impacts not only on the environment, but also on people.” She added: “I hope this will convince MEPs who are still hesitant to support at least the 5% cap and the inclusion of ILUC factors and to support the proposed compromises on the table, rather than merely take into account the economic interests at stake.” “If MEPs vote on Thursday to increase levels of biofuels, they will be casting a vote for hunger, and mandating that some of the world’s poorest people eat less food,” Blake added. “That is totally unacceptable.” Industry aggrieved However, reactions from the bioethanol industry in Brussels were fierce, personal and uncompromising. Although Searchinger is a respected economist, affectionately known as ‘the godfather of ILUC’ by environmentalists, his academic work has raised hackles. “I wouldn’t expect anything good to come out of Searchinger,” said Rob Vierhout, the secretary-general of ePure, the European Renewable Ethanol Association told EurActiv. “Whatever he says, he is biased. He is not even a scientist. He is a lawyer and could defend any position you want him to.” Before coming to Princeton, Searchinger was an attorney for the Environmental Defence Fund, where he wrote a prize-winning book on wetlands and led work to protect the Everglades and Mississippi river. “My concern is that he is illiterate in social sciences and wouldn’t get through first year social sciences grade,” added Eric Sievers, the CEO of Ethanol Europe Renewables Limited. “His work is sensationalist and works against responsible policymaking by perpetuating misinformation.” But Princeton University says that Searchinger’s works on ILUC “generally have been credited with reshaping the world debate on bioenergy.” Professor Detlef Sprinz, the former chairman of the European Environment Agency, told EurActiv that Searchinger’s work was “rather important” and “published in some of the best journals that we have.” Damaging implications But the implications of his work are highly damaging to the bioethanol industry’s case. For instance, the IFPRI study – which the industry criticises – also predicts a large reduction in food quality due to fuel crops, and that 60% of every hectare of maize planted for ethanol will come at the expense of using that land to grow food crops. Vierhout stoutly rejected such claims. “We don’t use that much maize for making ethanol,” he told EurActiv. “Most of what we use is [animal] feed wheat – not food wheat – and, sugar beet that was also never intended for food purposes, so I don’t see how you could say it is jeapordising food availability.” He added: “We don’t import wheat or maize for that purpose. We only use European crops and we always have too much land laying idle.” Searchinger though said that land used to produce animal feed for biofuels would require more land to be used elsewhere to produce feed for animals. This displacement effect was already accounted for in the studies, he argued. “The industry is trying to give the impression that there is this surplus land out there and there just isn’t,” he said. World increases in grain yields, which have tripled since 1950, are thought to be approaching a plateau, with only 1.3% annual growth in global grain yields since 1950, according to US scientists . NEXT STEPS: 1 July 2014: New biofuels installations must meet a 60% greenhouse gas saving threshold 1 Dec. 2017: Biofuels installations in operation before 1 July 2014 must meet a greenhouse gas saving threshold of 35% 31 Dec. 2017: The Commission will submit a review of policy and best scientific evidence on ILUC to the European Parliament and Council 1 Jan. 2018: Biofuels installations in operation before 1 July 2014 must meet a greenhouse gas saviong threshold of 50% 1 Jan. 2020: Deadline for 10% of EU’s transport fuels to be sourced from renewable energies. 2020 : European Commission will not support further subsidies to biofuels unless they can demonstrate “substantial greenhouse gas savings” Arthur Neslen Continue reading
