The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has urged the Delta government to exercise maximum caution in its proposed sale of 258, 000 hectares of mangrove forests, for billions of naira.
According HOMEF, its call for caution stemmed from the fact that carbon trade pollutes the environment, thereby endangering human lives, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. .
The Executive Director, HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey who was a guest speaker at the Environment outreach magazine public lecture/ annual award at Spring Hills Hotel in Asaba on Thursday explained that carbon trade is a killer disease which is bound to affect human beings including rivers.
Bassey said that through Blue Carbon or carbon trade, which is the sale of mangrove forest, people will calculate the carbon in the mangrove, then sell it as carbon credit.
“Delta State is proposing to sell 258, 000 hectares of mangrove forests, one of the biggest in the country to some companies, whose intentions we believe is to sell the carbon to oil companies, and when they buy the credit, then they have the right to pollute.
“Carbon credit is set to upset the pollution that is why it is a false solution.
“So, it doesn’t work. We have to do what is right to nature, and not necessarily because of money. Don’t allow carbon trading, don’t allow water pollution”, Bassey admonished.
Earlier, Bayelsa born Noble Akenge, the publisher of Environment Outreach magazine, lamented the negative effects of environmental pollution in the State.
Akenge said that the state being the heart of petroleum activities had suffered a lot of ecological damages due to oil spills.
The Environmentalist noted that the people’s major occupation of fishing and farming have been impacted seriously as most of their farmlands and even rivers and streams have been polluted by oil spills.
“The destruction of the rivers in Delta State represent the phenomena in most Niger Delta States where oil and related activities take place,” he added.
Awards were presented to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, the Managing Director of Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA), Prince Ebitimi Amgbare among others.
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