Climate change: Bishops to plant 5m trees

In a bid to mitigate the effects of climate change in the country, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has revealed plans to plant 5.5 million trees over the next five years. To achieve this, the conference established the “Green Revolution Campaign”, a tree-planting initiative to be led by Caritas Nigeria. The CBCN Chairman, Most Rev. Lucius Ugorji, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri, at the launch of the project in Abuja, said that 20,000 trees would be planted in more than 50 dioceses across Nigeria. 

According to Archbishop Ugorji, the project aims to prevent the environment from being destroyed by climate change, which could manifest as excessive rainfalls, rising sea levels, floods, severe droughts, desert encroachment in 12 northern states, loss of biodiversity, and conflicts due to competition for shrinking agricultural and grazing lands. Speaking on the development, the Executive Director, Caritas Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Uchechukwu Obodoechina, said that the intervention would reduce the incessant farmer-herder crises and other climate change problems facing humans and animals in the nation. 

The Director-General of the National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW), Dr. Yusuf Maina-Bukar, lauded the bishops conference for the initiative and appealed to other religious institutions across the country to emulate the action, to ensure a conducive environment and proper inculcation of sustainable environmental management in the country, adding that the initiative would help address threats to the livelihoods of over 40 million people, whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change problems.