Tree planting is vital to the environment. Lagos State Parks and Gardens (LASPARK) General Manager Mrs. Bilikis Adebiyi-Abiola, in this interview with MUYIWA LUCAS, speaks on the significance of the tree planting campaign and her agency’s role in ensuring a habitable environment.
What role is LASPARK playing in this bio-diversity agenda of Lagos State?
Our mission is towards a greener and healthier Lagos. One of our biggest mandate is to plant trees. Our annual target is one million trees planted in the state, which we’ve been achieving. Since we started in 2012, we’ve planted over seven million trees. And you as well know, trees are very important to bio-diversity, they are the natural habitat of many of the organism that are germane to the sustainability of the environment. Trees produce food for humans, as well as oxygen, which are very important to the existence of mankind. Trees also help to produce groundwater to ensure that the soil is well catered for and provide us with enough water to use for our daily activities. We have realised that we have to really continue to sensitise people about tree planting in the state and also to prevent wanton tree felling because people may not be aware that you cannot just cut the trees indiscriminately without the permission of the government. We have set aside a date, July 14 of every year, which is the annual tree planting day, with a tree planting campaign that is carried out across the state, in all the local governments, at the same time and trees are planted on that day.
We’ve also taken a step further this year by kicking off a community tree planting drive and we’re going around during the raining season to various communities of the state to ensure that people are carried along and sensitised and are a part of planting trees in their localities. Last week, we were in Epe Division of the state, where we planted over 200 trees in the community and were joined by young and old people. I was very happy and emotional when a woman, aged 106 years, joined us in the tree planting exercise in Epe. She came out, she couldn’t even walk well, but she came out and planted a tree with us. So, we are doing that all over the state, in various parts of the state; we want people to take tree planting as a personal thing and to also protect the trees after they have been planted.
Beyond planting trees, how do you ensure their sustainability?
We carry out a lot of monitoring of the trees through our monitoring team. We enumerate the trees as well, so we know how many trees we have planted. We know that not all the trees will survive, so we monitor them. We also replace them. So, if a tree doesn’t make it, we ensure that we replace the tree and ensure that there are enough trees in the area. One of the things that we’re really going to work towards is to do a scientific study on trees all over the state because we’ve seen just anecdotally that there are parts of the state that have more trees than others. For instance, you’ll see somewhere like Ikoyi or Agege, they have a lot of trees than areas like Alimosho. And because trees provide almost 40 per cent of the oxygen that we need, it’s a worrisome thing to see that there are some parts of the state that do not have enough trees. So, we’re going to do a mapping over time, to see where we need to pinpoint and target to plant more trees in the state.
How do you marry preservation of trees with the development of the state, especially in corridors, such as Lekki-Ajah and Epe, where you have to fell trees to build infrastructure?
We’ve seen that in some instances trees need to give way for development. There is just no way around it. But in most of the cases, we don’t approve every request to fell trees for development. We actually check. In some places around the world, when you look at some streets, you will see that it’s crooked; it’s because they don’t want to cut a particular tree, which is why they make the road crooked. One of the things we are selling to developers and construction companies is that if there is a tree on the Right of Way (RoW) of where you are going, try and work a way around it, because if you cut the tree, you have to replace it with five. But it will take some years for those trees you have planted to even start growing and doing carbon emission capture. Our job is mainly to sensitise but we know that some trees will give way, which is why we are also aggressively planting trees. There are some streets that you will see that the trees are planted only with a few yards. I just think about how Lagos must have been a few years ago, before LASPARK started planting trees. It must have been very bland, because there were no trees. If you look at some of the streets around, the trees that are there are just less than 10 years old. So, we have a lot of work to do.
How do you run the parks and gardens?
We have about 200 gardens and about eight recreational parks that we maintain across the state. We recently added to JJT Park in Alausa and Rafiu Jafojo Park in Shasha. We have a team of people; we have contractors; we have companies that are contracted by the state to manage the parks to make sure they are cleaned and to make sure that they are safe for usage. Over the past few months, people are beginning to feel comfortable, they are beginning to come to the parks. Even on Children’s Day, we had a programme for children in all of our parks, where children had a very good time. We have also kickstarted a bus tour, which is going to be around Ikeja. It kicked off at the JJT Park and ran from May 25 to 28 and it took children around Ikeja to see the monuments around the state.
What measures have you put in place to guide against social vices in parks and recreational centres?
In all of our parks, we have very tight security. We are all parents at LASPARK, a lot of us have children. So, we take our children to our parks and you can imagine for us to take our children to the parks, we definitely know that the parks are safe. We have security teams. We are very close to the police. We have a lot of people that are doing recognisance, some are plain-clothed officials monitoring people. You would not know that they are actually security operative, but they are actually monitoring people to see if there is a problem. Furthermore, we don’t let people come into the parks indiscriminately- we actually screen them. If you come into the park, you will see that you will only see decent people. Many of the bad elements of the society know that they are not welcome in the parks, so they don’t even come near them. All our parks are free, so you can bring you children to the parks, they will enjoy themselves. You don’t have to spend a dime to get in. You only pay if there is any organised programme, but most of the time you come to the park, the entry is free. In fact, the Ikeja City Tour we held from Monday to Wednesday, was free. But from today, there will be a fee to it.
Are you contemplating the public-private partnership (PPP) agreement to run the parks and gardens?
Absolutely, you are right. When you look at the amount of expenditure we incur to maintain the parks, it is much more than the revenue. We are also looking at companies to adopt the parks. Recently, one of our parks, Muri Okunola Park in Victoria Island, benefited from the largesse of Sterling Bank. The bank repainted the park, fixed some items and put in some artworks. So, we encourage the private sector to come in and support the park. You will be surprised at how cheap it will be to do this as a CSR, and it will be a way for you to promote your brand in a good atmosphere.
