By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Environment, Yusuf Idris,said forests management is a vital tool for sustainable wood based trade,sustainable environment and provision of social services for man’s survival.
He explained that
without forests there can be no timber, charcoal and
other allied products to trade in.
Idris made the disclosure at a two days consultative workshop on implementation policy guidelines on export of processed wood and charcoal and Nigeria timber legality standards yesterday in Abuja.
While declaring the workshop opened, the permanent secretary said”the workshop is yet another step towards achieving
responsible trade in the forest industry without compromising the integrity of the forests and in fulfillment of our commitment to national development
agenda as well as Global Goals”.
He noted that government will continue to play its part by
providing the enabling policy and guidance as well as oversight to ensure
achievement of the desired results as stakeholders, your maximum
cooperation is expected”.
He said Nigeria is recording steady progress in pursuit of the GFGs especially in the area of increasing the Nation’s forest cover.
“The Federal Ministry of Environment has also continued to provide seedlings to schools, NGOs and gives technical support.
“The Ministry has observed the propensity of some exporters that are using fake certificates. I will like to call them to desist from such act”.
He said many of the Exporters
groups that are yet to establish their plantations should urgently do so.
He noted that the ministry will not
consider applications of exporter groups without verifiable evidence of owning forest plantations.
Earlier,the Director Forestry, Hajara Sami, noted that with the conditional lifting of the ban and suspension on
export of charcoal and wood respectively.
“It is absolutely necessary that stakeholders meet to discuss implementation strategies of the policy guidelines on processed Wood and Charcoal and domestication of the Nigeria
Timber Legality Standards for
efficient utilization and effective forest management before the commencement of export of these products.
