Preservation of our natural environment: Past and present

“Gandun Daji Babu Farauta”, meaning, “Forest Reserve no Hunting”, used to be the inscriptions around forest reserves of Native Authorities. Prior to the Local Government Reform of 1976, the Abuja Native Authority had one of the best developed forest reserves in the Northern Region. The commonest specie was the Teak, a tropical hardwood tree. Under the supervision of the Sarkin Daji, the Native Authority dutifully safeguarded the forests, not only against traditional chopping for fire wood and lumbering for timber work, but also for farming and hunting. Any desecration was punishable by the Native Authority, up to prison terms. The remnants of such forests could still be found between Gwagwa and Karmo and many places in the Region.

Naturally, the animal world requires oxygen from its environment for its survival while releasing carbon dioxide as its waste product. On the other hand plants absorb the carbon dioxide and release the most needed oxygen which is its waste product to the environment. This is naturally designed to ensure equilibrium or balance in the ecosystem. Also, nature has provided the ozone layer as a regulator, by forming a protective shield to the earth against the direct solar radiation.

For the purpose of preservation of our local flora and fauna the International Planning Associates adopted the Garden City Concept in the planning of the Federal Capital City, when the Master Plan was being produced in 1979. The major component for the preservation of the flora in the First Phase of the City development was the National Arboretum. While, the largest reserve for the wildlife are to be in the Bobo plains, an enclosed valley of about 80,000 hectares. Beyond these proposals, the land use budget for the City, earmarked 33 percent for green development.

Meanwhile, in the quest for technological advancement through industrialization and urbanization viewed as advancement to the human development, man assumes the role of own enemy by releasing carbon dioxide, methane and other obnoxious gases from the earth to its atmosphere. The carbon dioxide has the capacity to break the ozone layer. From the early 90s the obnoxious gasses became higher than the amount the ozone layer can regulate. Thus one of the most needed substances for man’s existence in the universe is being destroyed. The consequences are what we now refer to as the global warming, or climate change.

The population of Abuja Native Authority which covered 80 percent of the entire FCT and three Local Government areas in Niger State prior to the FCT creation was nowhere comparable to the present geographical location that is the FCT. Floods and other natural disasters do occur in those years, but the extent of loss of lives and properties are nowhere close to the present. The threat posed by the population pressure in the city leads to stiff competition between rival land uses. Specifically the residential and commercial land uses pose great threat and challenges to areas reserved for greening the city.

Forests fringes adjoining major roads were erased in favour of the roads expansion. These were witnessed during the expansion of the Airport Road and ONEX. As effort to replace the flora being severed, an expansive buffer zone is provided between the Express road and the property lines. The responsibility of greening the buffer zones are not only on the Government, but also the corporate organizations allocated the plots along the expressways for development. Unfortunately, the private sector is unconcerned to that development requirement. The allocations of such violators need to be recovered.

As a capital city to the Nation, Abuja attracts a lot of population from all corners within and outside the country, improving its visual quality should be a national goal, thus the city greening through tree planting with both local and assorted species is a very important objective for achieving that goal. The measures adopted to preserve nature by both the Native Authority, prior to the creation of the FCT and the proposals in the Master Plan at the advent of the FCT were for mitigating the vagaries of weather, prior to the global warming threat. Will all the proposals and measures be adequate to arrest the dangers?

The importance of city greening for so many reasons can never be overemphasized. Among others, it includes ensuring ecological balance to curb the threat posed by global warming, ensuring visual quality and improvement of aesthetics for the city through tree plantings along the streets and stream lines, to deliberate policy of preservation of natural forests, creation of artificial parks for recreation and the planting of trees in all premises within the city. One of the major importance of the greening not being emphasized or rather neglected is food production through urban agriculture.

With all these efforts, can the ozone layer be regenerated in order to reverse the trends, if so, how long will it take? We do not have any choice now but to continue living with the situation, while we earnestly continue with the implementation of the solutions both at local and the global level.