The students during their tree planting programme in Abeokuta
Adejoke Adeleye, Abeokuta
Students of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta have joined the global campaign to combat global warming as they embarked on urban forestation programme.
The students, who are mostly from the Department of Forestry and Wildlife in the institution took to the streets of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital recently to plant seedlings and trees in houses while also sensitizing the people on the importance of tree planting.
The students had earlier embarked on a similar programme in the rural areas during which they planted countless number of trees in different rural communities.
The Acting Head of the Department, Dr Oladapo Odukoya, who spoke to journalists on the sideline of the exercise, said the issue of global warming had attracted the attention of the institution, hence the need for the exercise.
Dr Oladapo regretted that global warming had a damaging effect on the country’s economy, adding that the institution could no longer fold harm until the situation get out of hand.
His words, “Presently, there is a problem of global warming. The various problem global warming is causing include flooding; when a little rain falls, , everywhere becomes flooded, those are parts of the problems. Also the high level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has resulted in high heat. The trees will provide shade against sun in the afternoon.”
Odukoya who supervised the exercise also noted that the trees also have high economic values, assuring that people could eat or sell the fruits gotten from the fruit trees planted and they can as well harvest the leaves for many other purposes.
He also stressed that, “It is more of urban forestry. It’s about sensitising the people about the importance of planting trees in their homes, having gardens in front of the house for various purposes. In time past, you will hardly see a house without tress in front of it, but the practice is no more”.
“This our own community development programme. We have done it in the rural areas before, so we decided to bring it to the urban areas. In the next three or four years we will come back and assess the whole areas to see whether we have achieve success. It’s our own way of contributing to the development of the country,” he said.
The Representative of the the students, Michael Oluwadamilola said, “We have observed that global warming is serious, the more you cut the plants, the more you kill mankind and also you discover that these days, the heat gets so intense that we need trees around us to give us fresh air. For the communities, we had over 70 plants and we have been able to plants all of them. What we are doing now is urban forestation.”
