Dare Babalola
The Ogun State government has pledged to plant 1 million trees by the end of the year’s planting season.
The development was made public by the state governor, Dapo Abiodun at the 2025 Ogun Tree Planting Day, organised by the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with the Ministries of Forestry, Physical & Urban Development, Housing, and Community Development on Saturday.
Abiodun said the government will achieve the feat through a one citizen, one tree campaign across all 20 local government areas of the state.
On the importance of the trees, Abiodun said they will mitigate the effect of floods, occasioned by depletion of the ozone layer, provide fruit, medicine, and assist in reducing urban temperature.
Represented by the Commissioner for Forestry, Oludotun Taiwo, the governor said, “Today we are not just planting trees, we are planting hope, health and the future of Ogun state. Trees give us oxygen, they clean our air, shield our climate and yet, year after year they disappear.
“This year’s theme is plant and grow trees, sustain life. It aligned with our ISEYA agenda, especially the A that stands for agriculture and the environment. Trees are nature’s infrastructure, without them, nothing will stand.
“We must be honest climate change is real. We have seen it for long dry seasons, flash floods washing away dams, rising temperatures affecting livestock and humans. These are no longer distant threats, they are local problems and local problems need a local solution. One tree can provide shade, fruit, medicine, and income, so imagine what 1 million trees across Ogun state can do.
“Today we are launching the one citizen, one tree campaign across all 20 local governments, our target is to plant 1 million trees before the end of the planting season this year, to establish community trees in each local government, to train 500 youths and women as green ambassadors, to integrate tree planting into our school curriculum and market sanitation programs”.
The Commissioner for Environment, Ola Oresanya, had earlier maintained that the Abiodun-led administration has a robust plan for decarbonization to make the state more livable especially, with its strength in industrialization.
He noted that the world, according to the United Nations, is facing an unprecedented climate crisis, and Ogun being an industrial area, is conscious of planting trees in all areas of the state.
Oresanya asserted that tree planting in the state is not just ceremonial but strategic, scientific, and survival-driven to mitigate devastation of flood, disclosing plans to collaborate more with industries, integrate tree planting into school curriculum in order to encourage planting, adding that incentives would be given to groups, schools and institutions doing well in planting.
In his goodwill message, the Commissioner for Physical and Urban Development, Tunji Odunlami, noted that tree is life and without them, all will be dead, calling for collective effort to sustain tree planting.
Odunlami while stressing that the regulation for town planning provides for the preservation and planting of trees, appealed to all especially developers to refrain from indiscriminately cutting down trees when carrying out building development.
