Posted by By PAUL OMO OBADAN on
When many at 70 might have gone senile, preparing to retire into old age, Dr Newton Jibunoh, founder of Fight Against Desert Encroachment (FADE) is still bouncing around like a baby. The foremost environmentalist is set to embark on his third expedition across the dreaded Sahara Desert.
- Lone female expeditionist
When many at 70 might have gone senile, preparing to retire into old age, Dr Newton Jibunoh, founder of Fight Against Desert Encroachment (FADE) is still bouncing around like a baby. The foremost environmentalist is set to embark on his third expedition across the dreaded Sahara Desert.
However, unlike his two previous expeditions to draw awareness to the menace of the encroaching desert, Jibunoh is moving actually to solve it. The septuagenarian in a chat with Sunday Sun recently, said his labour of love at Makoda, Kano State, has proved that desert encroachment, a major factor in global warming, can in fact be checked.
One of the sponsors, International Energy Insurance Company presented a Life insurance certificate to Chief Jibunoh and his crew of expeditioners.
Desertification and Global warming
Desertification means the encroachment of desert. It is caused by cutting down of trees, burning of bush, lack of rainfall and coincidentally, lack of rainfall is caused by desertification, the encroachment of desert or the detonation of sand dunes lack of water, lack of enough rainfall, in sufficient of rain which causes drought and causes people to migrate in order to migrate to other communities.
'Both affect each other because when you burn trees, you increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and when there is global warming, the ice in the polar regions melt, the sea level rises and when it rains, there is a lot of flood which washes away houses, people Etc.
'Those who leave in the desert know for sure the menace Desert encroachment has caused them. The world as we know is a globe and not a flat surface. Thus, what affects one corner of our planet directly touches the other. When the sun shines it comes down hardest on the equator and its surroundings. As the earth spins round both on it's on axis and in orbit around the sun, warm bodies of water from the tropics, flow towards the poles and those from the poles, down to the tropics. This is what sets up the global weather machine and causes the wind to blow.
If the waters of the tropics become too warm for Mother Nature to even out at the poles, the ice caps would melt down and flood our coastal cities. The polar caps are indeed slowly melting down, given the current rate of global warming, occasioned by the activities of man and the emission of Green House gasses. Some of the effects are already being witnessed in many parts of the world. Something very drastic must be done about this global threat to our existence. This noble course is what drives me-for the welfare of mankind and the ecosystem. Now I am moving from raising awareness to the menace, to actually solving it and Makoda, in Kano State, Nigeria has proven that desert encroachment, a major factor in global warming, can be checked.
Effect on climate change
When you cut down trees, you deprive the soil of vegetative cover and there is wind erosion, there is water erosion and there is no fertility in the soil because there are no trees, there are no grasses, there are no leaves to make the soil fertile and then you get low yield of crop, and it leads to drought and migration of communities.
Lone female Expeditionist
Ebun Olatoye is the only female on the expedition train. She has been a reporter with the True love West Africa Magazine for the past three years. 'I came to interview Dr Jibunoh for True Love in the travel section and I have known of his previous expeditions. When I came, he said to me that he was going on his third expedition. And I said to him that I was fascinated by travel. I love travelling, I love to meet people and I am just kind of curious about the unknown terrain. So that was what prompted me. I also wanted to be involved because I felt that it was important for a larger Nigerian audience and a more global audience to be aware of his expedition.
I expect it is going to be very tiring. I expect it is going to be very hot in the afternoon and cold at night in the desert, but I expect it is going to be very exciting as well to see new faces and meet people that I never ever thought of meeting. I feel women are more capable of absorbing anything just like men. It's less risk because we are going with three cars, so it is easier and there are more people and it is less of a risk really.
The significance of the expedition is to raise awareness on climate change as it affects Africans, to create awareness on desert encroachment and desertification, to sensitize people on the fact that the desert is marching on what we know as life and community. Areas and community that once were, are no more because the Sahara desert has now consumed them up.
So what we are trying to do is to raise awareness so that our people, Nigerians and Africans, will be aware of this and start to do something about it - like the success story Dr Jibunoh did in Makoda in Kano State by planting walls of trees to stop the desert from encroaching on their terrain.
There is a solution to desertification and desert encroachment if you plant trees. That more Nigerians will be inspired to go into places that they don't know about. This is like an unknown terrain for me. I have never crossed the desert before and I am going to break that; go into the Sahara so that I can know about it. It is a mystery and I want to resolve that mystery.
Makoda, Kano
In 2004, International Energy Insurance Company Limited, first partnered with Dr. Newton Jibunoh by embarking on a tree-planting campaign, in the Northern region of Nigeria, where Desert encroachment is a very real problem. Various types of trees, taking in both the demands of the particular climate and importantly, also, the needs of the community as a people, were planted. Today, the Wall of trees, the then seemingly puny little seedlings, the various hardwoods and windbreakers, as well as the fruit trees, planted to provide a source of sustenance, both nutritional and financial to the community, a few years ago, are today strong, resilient survivors, thriving despite the changing dynamics of the environment, still providing cover to all who come seeking.
Green House effect
This is the saturation of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide as a result of global warming, burning of fuel in developed countries.
Kioto protocol
'Kioto Protocol advises the reduction of the amount of carbon-dioxide being emitted by reducing emission from factories, Gas emission and so on.
Remedy
'The remedy is to plant more trees, to stop cutting down of trees, re-orientate the students, about tree planting and organize tree planting competition amongst secondary schools. We plant what we call wall of trees. This wall of trees reduces the amount of soil erosion, and when the leaves fall down on the ground, it makes the soil fertile, their roots go down, down into the ground and draw water. And when you plant crops near them, the crops get sufficient moisture to germinate.
The United States Environment Programme estimates that about fourteen billion trees would need to be planted annually, for a decade, just to restore the number of trees lost over the last decade alone.