A United Nations official said on
Monday that degradation and competition over access to land and water may cause
war in Nigeria.
“Land restoration is about
security, reducing clashes between farmers and herdsmen over access to land and
water, which may trigger the Third World War”, Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive
Secretary of UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), told News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) in Ankara, Turkey.
“More lives have been claimed in
conflicts over access to land and water than Boko Haram.
“Every day, you have more
conflicts between people that are competing for access to land and water.
“The root cause of the
competition is access to natural resources,” the UN official told NAN on the
sidelines of 2019 World Day to Combat Desertification in the Turkish capital.
World Day to Combat
Desertification is celebrated every year globally on 17 June to promote good
land stewardship for the benefit of present and future generations.
The UNCCD head said that growing
population with growing demand on resources, coupled with Climate Change and
reduction of available land resources, were root causes of most of the bloody
conflicts.
“So, the tipping point was
reached long time ago; and most of the time this is also combined with bad
governance at national levels,” Thiaw said.
He said that land restoration
could not be left in the hands of governments alone, and called for a review of
the land tenure system in order to mobilise private business investment into
the programme.
“This means there should be some
concession for the business sector to participate in land restoration.
“It means that if a business
restores a land, it gets concession on the land for 50 years or more so that
the land remains restored rather than leave it barren.
“Otherwise, why would I invest in
land restoration if I had no right on that land; if the land continues to
belong to someone else, I won’t invest in it.
“Restoring land will reduce
forced migration and keep people on the ground to generate their own incomes
and live their own lives,” he said.
The UN official said that forced
migration was the worst that could happen to countries where people were
departing from.
“Most times, countries of
destination see it as a problem, but countries they are departing from have a
bigger problem because people involved in forced migration are educated and a
big loss to their national economies,” he said.
Thiaw also said that although
planting of trees was important and symbolic in land restoration, it was not
the only solution to the problem.
“You can plant billions of trees,
but unless you have good sensitisation, the trees will not grow or they clear
off again.”
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com