"One mangrove, a thousand hopes" - mangrove rehabilitation in Nigeria
This is a sentiment common to many Nigerians living near the river in Cross River State.
“Mangroves provide the best firewood, as people who roast fish know,” says Idem Williamson, a villager living in Eseriebom community in Cross River State. “But by cutting the wood, the mangroves disappeared. And without the mangroves, water would flood our houses.”
The need to restore mangroves inspired Williamson to get involved in a Community Based REDD+ (CBR+) project that saw the whole community come together to plant more than 10,000 seedlings. “The positive effect is that it controls the level of water coming in from the rivers and allows us to use the creeks for fishing. And we can pick the unwanted branches of the mangroves in specific areas for firewood.”
The Pressures Facing Nigeria’s Mangrove Ecosystem
Nigeria has the largest mangrove ecosystem in Africa, and the Cross River mangrove is one of the most important in the country. However, indigenous fishing communities on the coast harvest mangrove wood for household domestic use, in particular for cooking and smoking fish. This has put severe pressure on mangrove forests, leading to steady deforestation. Wood from mangrove forests is also used for housing material, scaffolding, fishing stakes and more. The increasing demand for mangrove wood and the steady encroachment and spread of the Nypa palm, an invasive mangrove plant, has exposed the country’s mangrove forests to severe degradation.
To read the complete story originally published on February 3 2020, please visit UN-REDD.
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