Posted by: Lekan Olofinji
Land degradation relates to the depreciation in the qualities and quantities of vegetation, soil resource, air, water resource among others. This article takes a look at the adverse effects of the activities of Man to the Nigerian environment.
Land reclamation efforts for effective use constitute as a major panacea to the problems of land degradation in the not only in the oil producing areas in Nigeria which is characterized by oil spillage, but also in other parts of the country.
Man’s relationship with his environment has always changed with time, depending on his understanding and knowledge of the physical environment. However, the natural environment is generally endowed with variable quantity and quality of resources within the space.
Hence, Man has come to regard his environment as a depot housing his needs and therefore always seeking for ways of extracting the resources within it, but always to the sad neglect of the environmental sustenance and consequently the emergence of a number of environmental problems.
Our physical or natural environment indicates that our environment is in its natural state and the features of the physical environment include rivers and water bodies, trees, hills/mountains, mineral resources such as iron-ore, gold, manganese, diamond, silver, columbite and petroleum among others.
When a cultural landscape emanates amid the physical or natural environment, it denotes that an interaction has taken place between man and his environment. Such activities that are human based include agriculture, mining operations, sinking of bore holes, wells, tree felling, and constructions of bridges, houses, road networks and railway.
Thus, every organism sees the environment as a resource store where he can conveniently fall back to, for all his needs. However, efforts made by man to harness these environmental based resources have translated into different forms of land degradation.
Man’s interaction with the environment is a clear indication that, due to growth in human population, the desire for a better condition of living has ensued. In meeting this drive, the earth’s natural plant and animal life have been replaced with economically more productive species.
This development is certainly in conflict with the natural conditions. One of such conflicts is the emergence of land degradations, which is the focus of this article.
Land resources cover a wide spectrum of soil resource, vegetation, minerals of all types and grades, water resource including sea animals and fishes, animals among others. The issue of land degradation comes into play when these resources either dwindle in size as in the case of sea animals, land animals and vegetal covers.
Invariably, land degradation’ is adopted to describe the scenario. The constituents of land degradation includes: soil erosion, deforestation and loss of biodiversity
The issue of land degradation has assumed a global perspective; there is no place in the world today that is not faced with one form of land degradation or the other. The magnitude of the incidence differs greatly.
Man by nature is gregarious and is out basically to capture all opportunities to his advantage and in most cases disregarding the consequent reactions of the environment to the activities.
More specifically, a traditional approach to the utilisation of land is the tilling of soil in the form of agricultural practices. By this uncontrolled efforts to open up virgin land, the consequences of rainfall – land interactions is usually one of splash erosion with the attendant cataclysmic effects on soil nutrient status and the general suitability for a number of other agricultural related uses.
Closely related to this is lumbering activities with the attendant consequences of forest destructions, loss of biodiversity and the general exposure of soil resource to desiccations and thus limiting its uses. Also, the incidents of petroleum extraction is yet another serious issue especially in the oil producing areas of Nigeria. Following intense oil production activities in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, there have been a continued emergence of squalors, with attendant problems such as erosion, pollution, general environmental degradation, among others.
In these areas, oil spills are frequent and the attendant problems are several and hazardous on the environment, the resources and man. The range of the land degradation may be more in the eastern axis and closely followed by the northern axis of Nigeria. However, the oil producing areas are worst hit, as most parts live in total squalor in terms of infrastructural provisions, environmental degradation, and pollution as mentioned earlier.
Thus, there is the need to promote land reclamation efforts with a view to enhancing convenience and quality of life too. The term ‘land reclamation’ refers to a conscious effort at wrestling back areas of ‘wasted’ parcel of land either by nature or man.
Precipitating the incidents of land reclamation is the dare need to subject parcel of land into a number of competing land use mixes and usually a follow up from the socio-economic activities within the human environment which ranges from agriculture, construction works such as road networks, bridges, mining operations and tree felling for a number of use.
However, these varied uses depend on the user and the availability of the land resource. In other to accommodate some of these uses, there is therefore the need to attempt at reclaiming the land resource already lost to such use.
For instance, the Tin mining area in Jos area of Nigeria can be reclaimed and put into a number of other use rather than being left to waste away and at the same time constitute as mosquitoes breeding points.
By this development, more infrastructure and other artifacts that are beneficial to man’s survival on the earth surface will come into existence. Through land reclamation efforts, seemingly inaccessible land areas will be made accessible.
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