The Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, (ERA/FoEN) Dr.Godwin Uyi Ojo, in an inception workshop on “Community Mobilization and Resistance Against Land Grabbing and Transnational Oil Palm Plantations in Cross River State” in Akamkpa last week by ERA/FoEN-RainForest Resources Development Centre (IDRC), said that the massive loss of land is against the recent globally approved land guidelines of 2012, which is intended to protect communities’ right to land and forests.
He said that, “on a global scale there is a growing effort to discentralised natural resource management in ways that local communities can share in the roles, responsibilities and benefits from conservation and forest management.
Guardian Reports that, this sort of initiative is gradually gaining roots in Ghana, Liberia, Uganda, Cameroun, where Community-Based Forest Management Systems (CBFMS) have been elaborated and functional.
“In Nigeria the reverse is the case as “the forests and natural resources face severe degradation and acute problems of land tenure system, thereby depriving settlers as well as small scale farmers to marginal lands which in turn result in reduced farm yields and a cycle of poverty.”
He said, “this has led to loss of deforestation amounting to 500,000 hectares of forests per annum in Nigeria, which is one of the highest in the world.”
Taking a review of on Cross River State Review of the Land Tenure System in Nigeria, Executive Director, NGO Coalition for Environment (NGOCE), Chief Edwin Usang called for the development of an all-inclusive land policy, effective monitoring of the activities of companies operating in the state while Civil society should engage them effectively.
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