Josfyn Uba, a journalist with over three decades of experience, has since turned tree planting advocate, environmentalist and humanitarian. She is the co-founder of One Million Tree Initiative, (a non-profit,) created to address the challenges of Desertification and seek ways to mitigate the impact of Climate Change.
The group engages in advocacy to save the Earth and work passionately to preserve the ecosystem by planting trees in various communities and schools in Nigeria. It recently embarked on a leisure/green park project at Magodo.
Today, her incursion into environmental journalism has unarguably offered her the platform to raise awareness on critical environmental issues such as climate change, climate justice and advocacy. “The initiative is designed to steer conversations across board about tree planting, environmental preservation, climate science, and most importantly, to create action,” says Josfyn, who is currently the Woman Editor of The Sun newspaper.
For Josfyn, the preservation of the environment through tree planting remains a veritable and age-long means of fighting desertification and reforestation. The benefits of trees can’t be overemphasised, she says. In her words: “They filter the air, prevent erosion, provide fresh drinking water, and create homes for thousands of species of plants and animals. Trees serve as wind breakers and help insulate homes as well as reduce heat.”
It is on this premise and her organisation continues to advocate for the environment.
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But the idea didn’t just start with the One Million Tree Initiative. According to her, as far back as 1996, when the world hadn’t opened up to the issue of Climate Change and its consequences, Josfyn and her brothers muted up the idea of protecting and policing the environment. They created an organisation, called ECO-CORPS. Their primary focus was to monitor, supervise, and regulate companies whose environmental sanitation practices were dangerous to people’s lives and the environment. They advocated for companies to channel their waste properly to avoid health and environmental hazards. They ran it for years. She left it to pursue her journalism career, a tool to tell informed and impactful stories.
Josfyn’s passion for saving the ecosystem resurfaced during the COVID 19 era, when the world literally stopped. And that was how the One Million Tree Initiative was born.
“With regular emission of carbon into the atmosphere, climate change has continued to impact adversely on the ecosystem causing significant damages to all spheres of life. Severe weather and rising sea levels are affecting people and their properties in developed and developing countries.
“Unprecedented flooding destroying the ecosystem and due to either excessive cold or heat waves and other forms of weather hazards are proof enough that Climate Change is real. If nothing is done as a matter of urgency, it will undo the progress made over the years in both human and infrastructural development. The consequences could be severe and almost irreversible. We must do all within our capacity, and fast, too, to reduce the greenhouse gases and emissions to the barest level as well as build climate change resilience.”
Her organisation has since partnered with LG Electronics CE Solutions, GSR 360 and SMP Media Group on its tree planting drive.
“Last year 115 trees were planted at Omole Housing Estate, phase 1, Ikeja in commemoration of the World Environment Day. This year’s edition will be held in June: we hope to do more and are open to all forms of partnership. It’s so great to see all the locations taking the typical shape of a green zone characterized by lush, blooming trees. This is not the first large-scale tree planting project we are executing. The team has carried out several tree planting projects in different communities and schools within and outside Lagos in collaboration with Rotary Club of Lekki Phase 1 and recently, we partnered corporate organisations on its leisure/green park project at Magodo GRA Housing Estate Lagos Street.”
Josfyn has a vision that in the next ten year the project will hold diverse initiatives to sensitise Nigerians on how to connect, conserve, plant and care for trees in their various communities. While doing all of these, she and her team are desirous of laying solid foundation for enhanced adaptation and mitigation capacity to combat the menace of climate change.