• By Emmanuel Olaoluwa

Let’s envisage for a moment a world of abundant greenery, one that is replete with a lush presence of trees, saplings and verdant turfs, seething with various organic life forms of miniature insects and humongous mammals, of crawling reptiles and flying bees and songbirds, of the various herbivores, carnivores and whatever-vores, altogether thriving and coexisting in pristine forest glory.

Tuck away this arboreal spectacle from your mind and imagine yet again a world – matter-of-fact, our current world – becoming singularly comprised of the wonderworks of innovation, with its plethora of immoderately industrialised cityscapes, becoming sweepingly depleted of its beautiful flora (and fauna) and without enabling strategies for the preservation of the myriad natural life species that inhabit it.

The non-human, biotic factors within the ecosystem are so vital to what we eat, drink and wear. Needless to say, its game provides us with flesh and meat and it is, in fact, the mere presence of trees that continuously animates us with their reliable provision of oxygen. While most people, however, lack or pretend to lack knowledge as to how pivotal these gifts of nature are, their ignorance or lacklusterness has constantly declared open season on much of the earth’s natural life which, in return, engenders sabotage even to ourselves.

To re-fortify her climate resilience, the government of Mozambique disclosed a few days ago her plan to plant over 100 million trees in its coastal region to restore its battered mangroves in a temporal span of 30 years due to rising sea levels and tropical storms.

The Ghanaian government took a similar decision in 2019 when it engaged 20, 000 skilled people to plant 10 million trees across her territorial landmark. While these developments came as a response to the hazards that were already manifest in each of these regions, it is only ideal and rational to do the right thing before the mismanagement of both forestlife and wildlife catches up with one’s community. 

To safeguard from or mitigate the effects of a society already embroiled in crisis, each individual but, more importantly, the government of every society collectively have roles to play. As implemented by the countries erstwhile mentioned, Nigeria and the rest of the world need must enact a massive tree-planting policy. The ‘already-green’ suburbia needs less of these but a cornucopia should be strategically dispersed to the various urban cities of the nation. 

Information-laden awareness and campaigns , both sensitising the public on the importance of an ecologically-sane environment as well as the possible untoward effects of a society that is otherwise, is another step to reshaping the world and its attitude to ecology. With information comes power and this power would help engineer crop of informed citizens who are eco-conscious in their daily dealings and, at the same time, passionate about making the world more hospitable to tress and all that constitute non-human but living organisms.