Alaba-Olusola Oke
Akure, – The Climate Sustainable Development Network (CSDevNet) has sensitised farmers and stakeholders in Ondo State on the global best practices to protect the environment during farming activities.
The sensitisation programme held on Thursday in Akure had participants from the four pilot sites in Ondo East and Ose Local Government Areas of the state, community based women organisations and civil society organisations.
Mr Steve Abu, Programme Manager, CSDevNet, while speaking at the workshop, called for collective efforts by relevant stakeholders on climate change adaptation.
Abu stated that the aim of the workshop was to build and strengthen the capacity of participants on climate change adaptation and climate-resilient agriculture.
“We want to ensure that they are strengthened on adaptation to climate change and on climate-smart agriculture so that they can replicate the knowledge in their rural communities to farmers and women,” he said.
He said that CSDevNet was collaborating with the state government to achieve its objective of facilitating a climate-resilient and sustainable Nigeria.
“We believe there is need to partner with the state government and other relevant stakeholders for climate change innovative and win-win partnership.
“We have state actors, those that have the responsibility of addressing this issue on their shoulder, that is government at various levels, while non-state actors like the private sector, civil society organisations and community-based organisations are equally important in the fight against climate change,” he said.
Abu advised participants to move to communities and replicate the knowledge acquired at the workshop.
Speaking, the Ondo State Commissioner for Agriculture and Forestry, Mr Olayato Aribo, said that the workshop was aimed at helping participants on strategy and measures to ensure that climate change would not affect farming activities.
Aribo, who was represented by the Administrative Secretary of the ministry, Mr David Adesina, said that the state government had put measures in place to tackle climate change by planting of trees.
He said measures also put in place included removal of plastic waste from the environment and clearing of blocked drainage channels for free flow of water among others.
Also speaking, the state Coordinator of REDD+ Project, Mr Andy Adejube, said the essence of the training was to mitigate the effects of climate change in the state in relation to forest-dependent communities.
Adejube said that there must be drastic reduction of deforestation so that human activities would not destroy forests.
Speaking on behalf of the participants, Mrs Clara Abidoye and Mr Aderemi Olaniyan, thanked CSDevNet and the state government for exposing them to best global practices on climate change while carrying out their activities without destroying the forests and the environment.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the participants were lectured on forest carbon inventory, forest carbon pool, global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures and climate-smart agriculture as Climate Change Adaptation. (NAN)
