Climate Change: Lagos, traditional ruler charge residents on Tree Planting

The Lagos State Government and a traditional ruler in the state have charged residents to cultivate the habit of tree planting in order to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Speaking at the Tree Planting campaign in commemoration of the 25th anniversary on the throne of Oba Tijani Akinloye, the Ojomu of Ajiranland at the weekend, the General Manager, Lagos State Parks and Garden, LASPARK, Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, said planting of trees would certainly help to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Adebiyi-Abiola, who was represented by the Head, Local Government Parks and Garden Management, Halima Adeniji reiterated that it was an offence to fell trees in any part of the state without seeking government’s permission, as such act would attract serious sanction.

She added that 100 trees had been brought from LASPARK to be planted in Eti-Osa as part of the tree planting campaign exercise in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the monarch on the throne.

Speaking, Oba Akinloye said the remarkable population growth in Lagos translated to ever increasing pressure on land for housing and business premises with profound environmental implication like deforestation, wetland reclamation, flooding, among others.

He said, Eti-Osa, which was one of the wetland regions, due to rapid urbanisation, had lost most of its wetland, leading to issues of flooding and erosion, stressing that to reduce the effect of flooding, tree planting had become one of the mitigating measures.

“Today, we only see buildings, cars, large signboards, roads and concrete instead of trees, beautiful flowers, parks and gardens. We are used to having polished lifestyles which has no benefits to the ecological system. The risk to our health and well-being from removing trees from the environment are far higher. The benefits that urban trees bring cannot be quantified.

“Apart from its capacity to reduce urban temperatures, it can also absorb pollution of all kinds of particles, chemical and even noise from the environment. Tree planting remains the cheapest mitigating option and the world’s second largest most effective means of absorbing excess carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby, cleansing the air and protecting the environment against flooding and coastal erosion,” he said.

Akinloye commended the efforts of the state government in planting trees across the state and also establishing the annual tree planting campaign on every July 14 of each year.

According to him, the tree’s right to live should be recognised and that it should be allowed t live until it was proving that it could not do so without a clear, demonstrable and quantifiable danger.

“It is high time we acted, this is our planet, let us work together to save and preserve it for generations yet unborn. All our action should be geared towards saving the planet earth, saving lives by planting more trees,” he said.