Governor Abba Yusuf on Sunday flagged off the planting of three million trees across the 44 local government areas of the state in collaboration with the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL).
Flagging off the event at a ceremony on Sunday, Gov. Yusuf planted the first tree along the State Road by the Government House, in Kano.
The governor said trees will be planted along major roads across the metropolitan local government areas of the state to encourage the people of the state to come out to start planting trees in their houses, on the roads as well as other places.
Yusuf, who is enthusiastic that this project will aid in replacing the trees that have been cut down for personal consumption of residents over the years also said it will discourage the negative effects of climate change.
“We want to as much as possible in conjunction with ACReSAL – a World Bank programme to purchase so many of those seedlings. So far we have chosen about three million seedlings that will be distributed across all the 44 Local Government Areas of the state.
“The largest share of about 1.5 million will be distributed and planted across major streets in the eight metropolitan local government areas,” he said
Kano ACReSAL Project Coordinator, Dr Dahir Hashim said the project was targeted at arresting the menace of climate change which has exposed the state to excessive heat of recent.
Hashim noted that with the 3 million trees to be planted this year, a total of over 10 million trees will be planted and protected before the end of the first term of Governor Yusuf’s administration.
”So, at least we are going to make sure that a minimum of 2.5m are planted and protected before the end of this year with the mechanism we have put in place,” Hashim said.
He stressed that three measures have been put in place to protect the trees including the sensitisation policy to discourage tree felling for firewood.