“The 20-hectare Indian hemp plantation and nursery prepared for transplanting of the illegal weeds were destroyed in the operation,” the executive secretary of the State Forestry Commission said.
The Ekiti State government has destroyed a 20-hectare Indian hemp plantation within the Ise Forest Reserves.
The plantation was set on fire by officers of the state Forestry Task Force.
The government said it was fully committed to combating illegalities in the state forest reserves while also actualising its mandate of reducing the rate of deforestation.
The Executive Secretary of the state Forestry Commission, Sunday Adekunle, who stated this on Sunday in Ado-Ekiti, said the action followed a tip-off that some miscreants were engaging in nefarious activities in Government Reserves along Ise axis.
He said making the state forest reserves more productive and flushing out men of the underworld from the reserves were high on the agenda of the commission.
Adekunle said the 20-hectare Indian hemp plantation and nursery prepared for transplanting of the illegal weeds were destroyed in the operation.
He stressed that the recent recruitment of 22 new forest officers and 17 boundary guards by the Biodun Oyebanji administration was having the required multiplier effect, in terms of improved security through regular patrols of the forest reserves.
Adekunle added that efforts were on to encourage local farmers to engage in farming activities on some lands within the forest reserves through agroforestry methods, particularly through planting of tree seedlings being currently raised at the commission’s central nursery at Erinfun in Ado-Ekiti.
The executive secretary disclosed that the commission would continue to embark on public education and sensitisation on key areas such as tree planting, wildlife, fire control and other matters, in its bid to boost forest conservation and afforestation efforts in the state.
