On the margins of the ongoing COP26 holding in Glasgow, the governor of Zamfara state, Bello Matawalle, has said that collaboration with partners is required to raise finances that will strategically protect and restore the ecosystem.

He also announced that his government would plant one million trees to fight desertification.

Mr Matawalle made the declaration on Saturday when he hosted the Zamfara state side event at the ongoing COP26.

In a statement released by the governor’s spokesperson, Yusuf Idris, the governor said that the tree planting project would be executed in partnership with Nigeria’s Great Green Wall project aimed at fighting desertification and soil erosion in the state.

Zamfara is one of the frontline desert states in Nigeria with 50 per cent of its landmass under threat of desertification, coupled with soil degradation caused by annual flooding during rainy seasons, he noted.

“My administration ventured into the scheme to save the largely agrarian society cultivating millet, guinea corn, maize, rice and other crops and to guarantee Nigeria’s food security,” Mr Matawalle said.

He lamented that climate change, which was a major driver to armed banditry bedevilling the state, was the result of the taking over of pastoralists’ grazing reserves, water and resting points.

Mr Matawalle noted that the state government was presently channelling resources to address these issues.

One of which, he said, includes establishing modern pastoral settlements known as RUGA, where herders are being settled in one place with all the required amenities provided for them and their animals.

According to the governor, the project had mitigated the perennial skirmishes between farmers and herders that gave birth to armed banditry in the first place.

He also said that the state government had already keyed into the World Bank-funded Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes programme, which has desertification control and landscape management as one of its components.

According to him, his administration was doing its best to protect natural habitats, protect and restore the ecosystem and reclaim the land by building defences, including resilient infrastructure and agriculture.

“The state government requires collaboration with partners to raise the finances that will strategically support this drive,” he appealed.

The Secretary to the State Government, Kabiru Balarabe; Commissioner for Environment, Nura Isah Gusau; Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, Faika Ahmad and the Special Adviser to the governor on Bilateral Affairs, Suleiman Shu’aibu Shinkafi, were among Zamfara state’s delegation.