By Vincent Ujumadu

SEVENTY percent of the land mass in Anambra State has been lost to the gully erosion menace, the state Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Felix Odimegwu has said.

Odimegwu, who spoke during the implementation completion and result report of the Nigeria Erosion Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP, additional financing in Awka, attributed the ugly situation on poor post-erosion management approach and pledged the state government’s readiness to devote more time to pre-erosion management so as to nip in the bud the erosion menace before it develops to difficult level.

He said: “Anambra is faced with an existential threat from the scourge of erosion. We are the state with the second-highest population density in Nigeria and a state with the most active number of erosion sites.

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“It is being reported that about 70% of the land in Anambra state is at risk of gully erosion. This is the precarious situation the state is in and with less than 3% of our erosion menace under control, we not only ask for more, but wish to charge NEWMAP and its funding partners to declare a state of emergency on Anambra’s erosion menace.

“As a government, we are prepared to do things differently this time around to forestall this scourge because erosion is a man-made activity that weakens soil aggregation and makes the soil susceptible to runoff velocity.

“The previous attempts at managing erosion menace in the state largely focused on post erosion management whereby remedies in form of engineering work only took place after the erosion had occurred, thus destroying scarce land, property and even lives.

“This time, we must devote more time to pre-erosion management by nipping in the bud erosion before it occurs.

“We’ll work with researchers in various institutions of learning to identify key erosion sites and obtain the index of every location in the state.

“This government is prepared to do things differently to tackle the menace this time around to forestall the scourge. Erosion is man-made activity which weakens soil aggregation and make the soil susceptible to run off velocity as in the case in Anambra state”.

A representative of the World Bank, Dr. Sanje Srivastava commended federal government for the good job it had done so far which led to saving of many lives and property.

He explained that the World Bank would start a programme called agro-climatic resilience in semi-arid landscapes (ACRESAL) project which, according to him, would be targeted at saving and preserving the landscape and extending the hand of partnership to the Nigerian government.