A recent scoping mission to seven states has led to the addition of Ogun, Edo and Plateau states to the the REDD+ Programme in Nigeria.
According to reports, the Minister of Environment, Dr Mohammed Mahmoud, has endorsed the additions.
REDD+ stands for countries’ efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
Dr Moses Amah, National Coordinator of the Programme made known the selection on Monday.
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Amah noted that 17 states indicated interest in joining the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) funded REDD+ Readiness Programme but only seven were pre-qualified.
“The 17 states are Edo, Delta, Imo, Akwa Ibom, Ogun, Plateau, Oyo, Kaduna, Enugu, Katsina, Bauchi, Jigawa, Lagos, Gombe, Anambra, Ebonyi and Abia,” he said.
According to him, the scoping mission, conducted by two teams, was undertaken to select the three most qualified states from the seven based on laid down criteria such as presence of tropical forest, lowland rain forest, mangrove and montane forest and states’ commitments to sustainable forest management regimes.
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Other criterias considered include forest dependent communities’ commitment to forest management; Institutional and regulatory framework that aligns with REDD+ implementation and State political will in driving sustainable forest management.
“These criteria informed the ranking/scoring of the seven pre-qualified states in the selection process. All persons involved in the scoping mission made their scores based on the above criteria,” Amah said.
He listed the summary of the average score for each state to be: Akwa Ibom State (66.5%), Edo State (77.8%), Delta State (63.8%), Imo State (61.6%), Plateau State (70%), Ogun State (80.2%) and Oyo State (60%).
“It is worth noting that these scores show the potential of all the states being supported in the REDD+ readiness programme, but the constraint lies in the FCPF grant sum which can only support just three additional states,” said Amah.
Cross River, Ondo and Nasarawa states, the earliest beneficiaries of a $3.8 million funding of the FCPF, are already implementing a REDD+ Readiness Programme.
However, an additional $4.9 million grant was approved by the FCPF, an initiative of the World Bank, to extend the REDD+ Programme to more states.
