Ogun govt to plant 1.5m tree seedlings

The Ogun State Government on Wednesday reiterated the importance of planting trees in the society aside of its contribution to socio-economic development, saying that it also for human survival as the climate change time to time.

Commissioner for forestry, Chief Kolawole Lawal disclosed this while addressing newsmen after planting some tree seedlings as part of the programme commemorating this year International Forest Day tagged “Forest and Water” saying that the Ministry had began to distribute 1.5 million tree seedlings to the nine forest reserves in the State.

Lawal said 2016 had been earmarked by the Ministry for massive tree planting in the State as government had started distribution of tree seedlings across the three Senatorial Districts of the state.

“For the government and the people of the state, year 2016 is a tree planting year, that is why we have stepped up the numbers of tree seedlings in our nursery sites from 700,000 to 1.5 million tree seedlings, so that we can have enough for distribution and planting in our forest regeneration exercise”.

He explained that the distribution and planting exercise was expected to commence around June this year during raining season, urging the people of the state to key into the free tree seedling distribution that would be provided by state government.

Lawal said that it’s very pertinent for the residents to plant trees even in their immediate environment to prevent climate change in the society, saying “The last man dies when the last tree dies”.

It would be recalled that 200,000 tree seedlings had been earlier raised by the Ministry but for the coming raining season, it has to raise it to 1.5 million to cut across the nine forest reserves in the state.