Environmental Health Officers Association of Nigeria has called on all tiers of government to discourage the indiscriminate felling of tress by applying the appropriate law, saying that deforestation had serious negative impact on the environment.
Its national vice-president (North-central), Mr Solomon Anyegwu, stated this yesterday in Lokoja while speaking on the negative effects of deforestation.
According to him, the enforcement is necessary because tree has a way of regulating the temperature of environment and the impurity in the atmosphere.
Anyegwu said: “The law stated that if you fall a tree you must plant one and that should be enforced so that human existence should not be greatly affected. Trees are also raw materials that are use by pharmaceutical industries by using the leaves back the tree and root to produce drugs.”
The environmental expert said indiscriminate felling of trees “affects people’s health,” adding that drugs that should have been manufactured from the provisional function of trees “are not there.”
He said “because of deforestation, there are no tress to make use of the bulk green house gas that comes from generators and other industrial uses resulting to climate change.”
Anyegwu advocated for enlightenment and sensitisation campaigns by various environment agencies “so members of the public can be educated on the dangers and negative effects of tree-felling.”
