The proposed Forestry and Wildlife Conservation Law currently before the Ogun State House of Assembly will help protect forest reserves and boost the economy of the State when passed into law. Commissioner for Forestry, Chief Kolawole Lawal stated this in Abeokuta, while speaking with the newsmen on the sideline of the public hearing conducted on the bill by the State House of Assembly. Lawal who appreciated the House for the prompt attention given to the bill, said the deliberate destruction of forest resources by human activities had caused huge loss of revenue that could have been channelled to develop the State. He said with the new bill, cocoa farmers would no longer need to destroy and replace economic trees with their cocoa as government was ready to provide more lands to interested cocoa farmers. ‘’When agriculture was the major source of revenue generation in Nigeria forestry and agriculture had been existing, no encroachment from both side into each other land so, why the sudden encroachment into forest reserves by the cocoa farmers? This had caused serious depletion on our forest reserves. With this new bill, the forest reserves will be more protected, preserved, and rapidly developed and this will no doubt help to improve the State economy as the interested cocoa farmers will be provided land by the government to continue their farming’’ Lawal said. In its submission, the Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN) agreed that the forest must be preserved, but proposed that its members be allowed to harvest the cocoa trees with the promise not to plant new cocoa henceforth.
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