Mitigating climate change: Trees to the rescue?

Alex Abutu


After decades of denial about global warming and its after effects, the world was recently been jolted by reports of extreme floods in Kenya, Canada, Indonesia and Southern Africa, indications that global warming may be the chief culprit.

There have also been increased cases of drought in the Sahelian region of Africa and increased incidence of hurricanes in the USA.

In central Nigeria, global warming is being blamed for the violence between nomadic cattle herders and peasant farmers who have been locked in conflict over scarce land for decades, as the desert creeps southwards.

Similarly, deforestation, dwindling water supplies and rising sea levels could spark mass migrations, provoking ethnic conflict as dire predictions by the United Nations indicate that temperatures may rise by 1.4 - 5.8 Celsius by 2100.

Africa

"Regions that are already least secure in food production, like sub-Saharan Africa, stand to be the worst affected by global warming as wet areas become wetter and dry areas become drier," says a recent global report on climate change.

"Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the Global Climate Change Programme at conservation group WWF said, citing its extreme poverty as further impeding its ability to cope.

To compound it further, desertification also threatens to drive millions of Africans from their homes, according to a recent international report drawing on the work of 1,360 scientists in 95 nations.

In one instance, researchers and the government say that Uganda's climate has become hotter and its rains more erratic in the last decade, posing a threat to its key coffee crop.

Others point at gullies of eroded, barren earth scarring the shoreline of Lake Victoria, which borders Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, as illustrating the extent of the problem.

Rising sea temperatures are also among the threats seen to the coral reefs off Africa's lush east coast, the life-blood of poor coastal communities dependent upon fisheries and tourism.

On the whole, the results have been loss of lives, destruction of property, injury and hardship inflicted on humanity, underscoring the fact that global warming is both a reality and a phenomenon that begs for collective action.

It is against this backdrop that strategies are being worked out to contend with the challenges of how tomitigate the effects of global warming, particularly on such vulnerable areas as Africa, already scarred by deforestation, poor soil health and drought, among others.

Strategies

In pursuit of acceptable strategies, spanning over 15 years of work, a few protocols and conventions have been adopted.

They include the Montreal and Kyoto protocols, targeted at reducing the emission of carbon dioxide globally.

The Kyoto protocol, for instance, aims at curbing the air pollution blamed for global warming, requiring countries to cut the emission of carbon dioxide and other green house gases.

Kyoto, which became legally binding on February 16, 2005 demand a 5.2 per cent cut in GHG emission from industrialised world as a whole by 2012.

The protocols have in most cases failed to achieve set emission targets as countries adopted a laid back approachto meeting set objectives and commitments contained in the protocols.

In particular, countries, notably the worst polluters, have continued to place their economies above the commitments to the protocols thereby jeopardising its realisation much to the chagrin of most developing countries and environmentalists.

The new initiative tagged `` Plant a billion trees'' launched at the 12th conference of parties to the Kyoto protocol in Nairobi in 2006, seems to hold the key to unlocking the devastation occasioned by global warming.

The campaign fashioned after the works of Nobel laureate, Prof. Wangari Maathai, and sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hopes to realise the target of planting one billion trees by the end of 2007.

Maathai said that the vital importance of voluntary collective action in the fight against climate change wasbeing undertaken with the launch of the campaign, which she noted, was an action the world must take today to preserve the climate for future generations.

She said that the target of 2007 was achievable if one billion people out of the world's estimated population of six billion ``dig a hole, put a tree in it and water it.''

The campaign is premised on the science of using trees as 'carbon sinks' whereby they soak up carbon dioxide and release into the atmosphere oxygen.

According to UNEP, rainforests cover only seven per cent of the land on earth but contain nearly half of all the trees on earth and generate about 40 per cent of the world's oxygen.

``In one year, an average tree inhales 12 kilograms (26 pounds) of carbon dioxide and exhales enough oxygenfor a family of four for a year,'' UNEP said.

Recognising that there were many tree planting schemes round the world, UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner said that the new initiative was aimed at federating these efforts in view of its benefit to mankind.

Steiner said that achieving set targets under the campaign must not be confined to the corridors of the negotiation halls but offer a direct and straight forward path down which all sectors of society would step to.

``In-recreating lost forests and developing new ones, we can also address other concerns including loss of biodiversity, improving water availability, stemming desertification and reducing erosion,'' he said.

Steiner added that `` the billion tree campaign is but an acronym, but it can also be practically and symbolically a significant expression of our common determination to make a difference in developing and developed countries alike.''

He said that the world has but a short time to avert serious consequences as a result of climate change.

Under the initiative, people, communities, businesses and industry, civil societies and government are being encouraged to make commitments to planting trees.

Prince Albert 11 of Monaco, says one of the primary aims of the campaign is to create an unprecedented mobilisation in favour of the environment.

Albert, who is the patron of the initiative, said that the project would encourage and coordinate the planting of local species initiated by governments, NGOs, communities and even children.
``The campaign is a simple gesture, yet a strong symbol of sustainable development,'' he said.

Al Gore, former US vice president, added credence to the efficacy of tree planting saying that ``the symbolism and substantive significance of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions to the environmental crisis.''
Limitations

In Nigeria, governments at various levels have in the past two decades embraced tree planting campaigns aimed at greening the desert, checking desertification, degradation and erosion in most parts of the country.

The campaign, experts noted, has, however, degenerated into an annual fanfare without sustainable strategies to ensure that the campaign succeeded.

Dr Tony Nyong, an environmentalist with International Development Research Centre, describes the tree planting campaign in Nigeria as a mere jamboree.

Nyong said that the present campaign needed to be overhauled and trees such as palm trees be included in the campaign in view of its carbon sequestration potentials.

On a debit side, a recent research by scientists at the Nairobi-based World Agro Forestry Centre (ICRAF), appear to question the benefits of the 'plant a billion tree campaign' as it said trees utilise more water than hitherto believed.

The research noted that trees such as Eucalyptus consume as much as 2000 litres of water daily while Pinus Patula consumes between 500 to 1000 litres daily.

Thus, the implication of planting trees such as Eucalyptus under the campaign is that watershed management would be under serious threat if one million of such species were included in the campaign.

The research findings noted that average rainfall in East African catchments was between 1200 to 1800mm, Eucalyptus, it said, would consume most of this water.

Plantations of thirsty trees according to the research, funded by the Swedish International Developmental Agency, will only be viable in high rainfall areas, run-off where water collects, and where ground water is more readily available.

It cautioned that ``avoiding plantations of fast growing trees that can easily exacerbate water shortage will decrease the impact of climate change.''

One of the lead scientists in the research, Dr. Chin Ong said that the plant a one billion tree campaign must, therefore, target local species that would not pose any threat to the watershed.

He said that the research should be able to identify such local tree species that would not only conserve water for the needs of the rural populace, but also assist in scaling up their livelihood.

Armed with this knowledge, inaction would not be accepted as an excuse for the world not to tame one of the latest threats to humanity, especially in Africa the acclaimed cradle of man. (END)

Genetically Modified crops and food security in Nigeria

GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS AND FOOD SECURITY IN NIGERIA
By Alex Abutu, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

Genetically modified (GM) foods have since their
introduction in the global market in the 1990s been
fraught with controversies.

The controversies have centred on human and
environmental safety, ethica and consumer choice.
Other contending issues include food security,
labelling, intellectual property rights and poverty
reduction.

The most common modified foods are derived from
plants such as soya beans, corn, cotton seed oil
and wheat.

These are foodstuffs produced from genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) that have had their
DNA altered through genetic engineering.

In spite of the controversies, experts say what is
important is how to sufficiently regulate GMOs to
optimise their benefits while safeguarding against
risks.

The Church of Scotland notes in a publication that
the long-term impacts of GM crops are not yet
known.

''The massive use of transgenic crops poses
substantial potential risks from an ecological point of
view,'' it says.

The publication also says that the ecological
effects of GM crops are not limited to pest
resistance and creation of new weeds or virus
strains alone.

The Church says that no one can really predict the
long-term impacts that will result from such massive
deployment of the crops.

Lancet, an international medical journal,
corroborates the views of the Church of Scotland.
It says that the repeated use of transgenic crops in
an area may result in cumulative effects, including
the build-up of toxins in soils.

It, however, says that enough research has not been
done to evaluate the environmental and health risks

of transgenic crops.

Also, Anne Peterman, Co-Director, Global Justice
Ecology, says that ''Genetically engineered trees
threaten to contaminate native forests around the
world with unnatural and destructive traits.''

According to her, such trees can kill insects and
reduce lignin, the substance that enables a tree to
withstand diseases.

Peterman is the leader of North American Focal
Point for Global Forest Coalition.

The release of genetically engineered trees into
forests, she says, is capable of devastating wildlife,
bio-diversity and forest-dependent communities.

Nigeria's moves to introduce GM crops into the
country, therefore, arouses concern.

This is against the backdrop of the apprehension
expressed by experts and other stakeholders on the
subject.

The question on the lips of observers is: how can
Nigeria adequately regulate and control a
technology which some industrialised countries of
Europe have refused to accept?

Analysts say that Nigeria lacks the requisite
legislation and facilities to practice the technology.

Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Malawi
have enacted legislation that provide the legal and
institutional framework for governing genetically
modified crops.

Field trials and release of genetically modified
maize have been done in Kenya and South Africa.

However, the products of the research are mostly
used as animal feeds.

Nigeria signed and ratified the Cartagena Protocol
on Biosafety in 1992.

The Protocol allows Nigeria to share in global
knowledge and best practice initiatives on bio-safety
technology.

The Protocol also sets out international rules and
mechanisms for ensuring safety in the handling,
transport, use and release of genetically modified
organisms.

Environment and Housing Development Minister
Halima Tayo-Alao expresses government's concern
on the issue.

She says there is need for Nigeria to develop
policies and laws to regulate modern bio-technology
in a more robust and encompassing manner.

The ministry, she says, has engaged the assistance
of line ministries, agencies and the UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) in developing a National Bio-
safety Framework.

Tayo-Alao says that the framework will soon be
forwarded to the Federal Executive Council.
It will incorporate a regulatory regime such as
notification, information transfer and review, risk
assessment, socio-economic impact and ethical
considerations.

It will also contain specific provisions on monitoring
and enforcement, transportation and trans-boundary
movement and testing, release and disposal of GM
products.

The minister says that Nigeria is prepared to take
advantage of the potentials of biotechnology to
address food security, healthcare delivery and
environmental protection.

But the minister agrees and alludes to fears
expressed by experts on the potential risk of GM
crops.

''The potential benefits, not withstanding, there are
indications that the products of modern
biotechnology could have adverse effects on
human health and biological diversity as well as the
environment,'' she says.

Dr Wallace Udoh, of Advocacy Group for Safe
Biotechnology in Nigeria (AGSB), says the
uncertainties and controversies surrounding
biotechnology in agricultural development and food
security are not confined to Africa alone.

He says there is an urgent need for well-informed
stakeholders to engage in positive dialogue that will
generate consensus among them over the existing
uncertainties and controversies about
biotechnology.

Udoh says that the advent of genetic engineering in
agriculture had clearly changed the content and
nature of the debate on how to respond to food
insecurity.

According to him, the technology tends to portray
biotechnology as the panacea to combat food
insecurity in Africa.

But is Nigeria prepared to analyse and handle the
risks associated with biotechnology?

Prof. Yusuf Abubakar, Executive Secretary, National
Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, says
Nigeria must first introduce a competent regulatory
system before developing and introducing
genetically modified crops into the country.

''The need of having an active regulatory system is
basic and not optional if we are to fully deploy GM
crop technologies in Nigeria.

''The tendency is that if we close our doors to GM
crops, we may eventually find them trooping in
through the back door.

''Introducing transgenics require a cost-effective
and transparent regulatory system with expertise
and competence to manage their release and use,''
he advises.

Abubakar wants the scientific human capacity to
adequately handle research and development of
GM crops in the country to be strengthened through
training and retraining.

But Science and Technology Minister, Grace
Ekpiwhre, notes that in spite of the controversies,
biotechnology has the potential to tame hunger in
Africa.

Ekpiwhre's argument is based on the fact that
Africa's par capita food production had declined
over the last two decades.

''Yields of staple crops fell by an average eight per
cent on the continent compared to an increase of 27
per cent in Asia and 12 per cent in Latin America,''
she says.

The consistent decline in food production, the
minister says, has made it imperative for the
continent to seek effective ways of fast-tracking
food production processes.

''Biotechnology is one of those new ways.

''The potency of transgenic crop technology for
increased productivity, nutrition, crop resistance to
pests and drought is no more questionable,'' she
says.

Ekpiwhre says that the introduction of genetically
modified crops into Nigeria will support
government's food security programme.

Prof. Bamidele Solomon, Director-General, National
Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA),
agrees, saying his agency is working on a modality
for domestication of GM crops.

''This is in order to increase crop harvest per unit
area on farmer fields in Nigeria,'' he points outs.
According to him, NABDA will develop modalities to
utilise national, regional and international biosafety
structures to facilitate the introduction of GM crops
into Nigeria.

Agreeing that a lot of controversies have trailed the
idea of introducing biotechnology, he says: ''but it is
important that we take a decision''.

''Nigeria needs to make a statement to the world on
where it stands on biotechnology,'' he says.

Analysts say it is appropriate for Nigeria to carefully
consider the cost-benefit implications of
biotechnology.

They say this is necessary to evaluate its risks
before unleashing a technology that can endanger
the lives of the present and future generations.

** If used, please credit the writer

Checking false claims to scientific discoveries

By Alex Abutu

For Nigerians living with the HIV/AIDS virus nothing
could have been more soothing than the news,
in 2000, of a scientific breakthrough that suggested
an eventual cure for the pandemic.

With thousands dying daily, the claim by Dr Jeremiah
Abalaka, an Abuja-based medical doctor, was seen
as a ray of hope for the already hopeless and hapless
victims.

But that hope was not to last as the authorities rejected
the said discovery when Abalaka refused to submit his
claims for scientific verification.

The team from the federal ministry of health that
sought to investigate Abalaka's claims concluded
that his discovery was premised on ''other means
rather than scientifically acceptable methods''.

But hardly had the euphoria on Abalaka's claim
died out than another Nigerian scientist came up
with yet another claim to a similar discovery.

This time, it was Dr Jacob Abdullahi, an Abuja-based
laboratory technologist who also claimed to have
discovered another cure for the HIV/AIDS infection.

Before peers, scientific societies and the general
public could come to terms with the purported claim,
a lot of people infected with the virus had surrendered
themselves to be used as guinea pigs to prove the
efficacy of Abdullahi's drug.

As it was in the case of Abalaka, Abdullahi
outrightly rejected attempts by experts and federal
government officials to authenticate and subject his
claims to internationally acceptable standards.

An angry Abdullahi alleged that he was being
persecuted by jealous colleagues. At a point, he
said his ``stunning discoveries'' were only being
``rejected and ridiculed'' because of his religious
convictions and the minority status of his Igala
nationality.

Owing to the freedom enjoyed by Nigerian
scientists claiming to have the cure for all kinds
of ailments, scientists from other countries with
stringent laws where such practices would have
been rejected as unethical, have found a haven
in Nigeria.

Such people have continued to exploit the gullible
members of the public. One of them is Prof. Anumag
Ngu, a Cameroonian, who submitted a proposal on
HIV/AIDS cure to the federal government in 2004.

Stakeholders, who felt that the claim had some merit,
prevailed on the federal government to constitute an
inter-ministerial committee to verify the claim. I

ncidentally, Ngu is being accorded a special treatment
in Nigeria even as his claim was outrightly rejected in
his native Cameroon.

Experts, who faulted the attention given to the
Cameroonian, appear poised for the last laugh
as the committee is yet to submit its report, some
four years after.

A member of the committee who pleaded
anonymity recently told journalists that there
was no substance to the claim. ``We have tried
our best, but there does not appear to be any
thing serious in the claim,'' the member stated.

Another celebrated case was Dr Ezekiel Izuogu's
well-publicised claim to achieving a breakthrough
in ''Emagnetodynamics'' in 2007. Izuogu, who
announced his discovery at a news conference,
declared that his finding had proved the age-long
Physics law of energy conservation wrong.

At that briefing, he called on the federal government
to patronise his discovery as it was capable of solving
Nigeria's energy crisis.

Izuogu said that the discovery had disproved the
law of conservation of energy with the invention of a
self-sustaining ``New Machine''.

The law of conservation of energy, a very crucial
law of Physics and Engineering, stipulates that energy
can neither be created nor destroyed.

Izuogu said that the New Machine would be drawing its
energy from permanent magnets to function.

``This will prove the all important law of conservation
wrong,'' he claimed.

He explained that the invention built on the principles
of ``Emagnetodynamics'' was premised on the
foundation that ``permanent magnets may contain
use.''While scientists continue to verify Izuogu's claims,
analysts have faulted the idea of first announcing
scientific discoveries to the media.

They say that there are acceptable procedures which
discoveries, inventions and innovations must pass
through to gain societal recognition.

One example, they often cited, is Edward Jenner's
discovery of the cure for Small Pox in 1840.

The discovery, which was published in a journal,
was subjected to debates, public criticisms and
reviews until all the doubts were cleared.

Another scientist, Robert Koch, discovered the bacterium
that causes anthrax in 1876, and subjected the finding to
peer analysis both in Berlin and Egypt.

But the situation is different in Nigeria as criticisms by
peers and calls for analysis by the public are viewed as
deliberate attempts to run down the personality of the
scientist.

Worldwide, scientific claims are first published in journals,
giving opportunities to other scientists to take serious look
at the claim and subject such to test.

The publication also gives the claimant the opportunity of
having his works assessed and criticised by his peers to
enable him make amends where necessary.

An interesting dimension is the fact that peer-reviews
are not limited to the area where the claimant is based.

They are read globally and the contents subjected to
global criticism, assessment and improvement. In 1862,
for instance, a French scientist, Alexandre Beguyer de
Chancourtois, developed a way of representing elements
by wrapping a helical list around a cylinder.

The finding was published in a journal, resulting in analysis
and criticisms that set the pace for what today is known as
the Periodic Table. Chancourtois' work was to wait until
1869 when a Serbian scientist, Dmitri Mendeleev, came
up with the Periodic Table, having analysed the earlier works
undertaken by Chancourtois courtesy of its publication in a
journal.

For this discovery, Mendeleev was awarded the Nobel prize
in 1890.

Some observers blame the growing number of false
claimants to medical and scientific discoveries in the
country to the fact that there is no officially designated
institution charged with the responsibility to verify and
check claims by scientists.

They say that the situation can be sanitised if there is
an independent commission or organisation saddled
with the responsibility of verifying such findings.

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the Pharmaceutical
Society of Nigeria (PSN), and the Nigerian Academy of
Science (NAS), appear not to have shown much interests
on what is happening.

But while the debate rages on the ways to minimise
scientific fraud, pundits say that thousands of people die
daily for subscribing to uncertified drugs produced by
fraudulent claimants.

Analysts have, therefore, called on the government and
research institutions to explain why such persons who
seek after fame and wealth should be allowed to freely
administer drugs that have not been scientifically verified.

They say that the only way to demonstrate their disapproval
of the claimants' activities will be to institute legal
proceedings against such persons.

That way, they reason, fake claimants will be forced to
leave the scene and serve as deterrent to others like
them.

My stories

This blog is dedicated to science stories from Nigeria and purely my works. Suggestions on how best the stories should be written is welcome.

Alex Abutu