When I look at the way the British Tory leadership election is being dominated by economic issues, it is easy to see what is wrong with Nigerian politics. Do any of the Nigerian presidential candidates for instance have a tropical rainforest policy?

Ayo Akinfe

[1] I was just checking through some data on tropical rainforests and discovered there is not one such registered forest in Nigeria despite it accounting for 7.7% of our landmass. This inspite of the fact that the rainforest forms the majority of the environment in certain states like Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Abia, Cross River, Edo Oyo, Ebonyi and Ekiti

[2] For anyone who thinks this is not important, do you know that the rainforests are arguably the most vital ecosystems on our planet. Home to over half the world’s plant and animal species, the largest rainforests absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping maintain the balance of the air we breathe, while simultaneously playing a critical role in curbing global warming

[3] Tropical rainforests once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface but today, this figure is only 6%. Despite this, about 80% of the world’s documented species can be found in tropical rainforests. Of all tropical rainforests, 57% are found in Latin America with a third in Brazil. Other major tropical rainforests are located in southeast Asia and the Pacific islands (25%) and West Africa (18%)

[4] Nigeria has about 10,000 square hectares of tropical rain forest. We are losing about 3% of this a year. Lagos State for instance was once all tropical rainforest but alas today, there is barely one tree left standing in the state

[5] Do you also know that cocoa can only grow in the tropical rainforest as it needs its canopy to thrive? In Australia for instance they tried growing cocoa but it simply did not work

[6] Checking through the lists, I found several protected rain forests like the Amazon, Congolese, New Guinean, Valdivian, Borneo, Sumatra, etc forests but none in Nigeria. We simply have not ring-fenced our forests or introduced any measures to protect them

[7] Yam, coffee, cocoa, bananas, mangoes, papaya, macadamia, avocado, and sugarcane all originally came from the tropical rainforest and are still mostly grown on plantations in regions that were formerly primary forest. A responsible people would maintain their forests alongside farming settlements to produce these crops in specially designated areas

[8] Known as the lungs of the earth, it is the tropical rainforest that allows us to produce oxygen on our planet. A simulation was once performed in which all rainforest in Africa were removed. This simulation showed an increase in atmospheric temperature by 2.5 to 5 degrees Celsius. Just imagine the impact that would have on earth

[9] Carbon dioxide increases each year as a result of burning fossil fuels and deforestation but the amount it goes up from one year to the next depends on whether tropical forests are absorbing carbon dioxide or releasing it. Basically, the less forest we have, the less oxygen there is on our planet

[10] Why can’t Nigeria leapfrog the rest of the world here and do something dramatic. Ringfence maybe the rain forest areas of Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states and give it a name like maybe the Oranmiyan Rain Forest and set up a special laboratory there that can produce oxygen. Also, ban logging in this designated zone and then set a cocoa production target of say 5m tonnes. Just imagine the premiums we could charge on producing natural oxygen directly from the tropical rain forest