UN Favours Nigeria in One Billion Tree Planting Campaign
 27th NOV 2006

A campaign to plant one billion new trees globally has been launched by the United Nations (UN), with Nigeria as a likely benefactor.
Africa’s outstanding environmental campaigner, Professor Wangari Maathai, in collaboration with United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), champions the one billion-tree campaign.
United Nations Under-Secretary General and UNEP’s Executive Director, Mr. Achim Steiner spoke on Nigeria’s chances during an interview with journalists at the just concluded United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Nairobi, Kenya.
According to him, UNEP is working with Nigeria to solve environmental issues. There have been recent alarms over increasing rate of desert encroachment at the Northern part of Nigeria. This has become a major source of concern for the government and international agencies.
“Although, we have no special arrangement in the One Billion Tree Campaign to fund special projects in specific countries like Nigeria, we sure have Nigeria as one of the countries we are doing some things on environment”, Steiner said.
He also disclosed that he met with Nigeria’s Minister of Environment Mrs. Helen Esuene and discussed issues relating to climate and environments.
Although, he did not say how far the discussion went with the minister and what grounds they covered, he disclosed that the agency would be keeping the country in focus for any intervention as the case may be.
The United Nations Environment Programme boss also discarded notions that the project might be hijacked and turned into a tool for political campaign, saying, “If anybody is going to use the tree planting campaign as a political tool, then it is okay because that would make it more popular and that is exactly what we are looking for”.
The initiative is aimed at highlighting the importance of voluntary and collective action in the fight against climate change.
The 2004 Nobel Prize winning Maathai, who is the leader of the activist body, The Green Belt Movement in Kenya is leading this global call for action.
It is targeted at arousing the interest of concerned governments, individuals and other organisations, especially in the tropic, which falls in the list of most affected regions.
Steiner who spoke glowing of the programme said he was initially sceptical about getting involved but now feels highly elated for letting go and consenting to support it.
He said tree planting represents one of the many ways of redressing climate change.
Maathai in her remarks noted that the Kenyan example where three million trees have already been planted could serve as a model for the One Billion Tree Campaign and others similar projects.
She, however, cautioned that the efforts might not be worth the while if actions are not sustained after the Nairobi Conference.

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