By Tony Adibe
The Director-General of National Council on Climate Change of Nigeria, Dr Salisu Dahiru, has advised South-East residents to adopt an environmentaly-friendly cooking stove to preserve the vegetation and forests of the zone.
Dr. Dahiru gave the advice during the South-East women sensitization on Climate Change and Atmosfair Save-80 Clean Cookstoves in Enugu on Wednesday. The Director General explained that millions of households in the country, including those in the South-East, cook at least once a day, two or three times daily; and most households do the cooking depending on firewood or charcoal from trees.
He said, apart from the individual hazards this cooking does to the health, family pocket and immediate surrounding; in the long run and collectively it leads to depleting and eroding away of our forest and natural vegetation. Dr. Dahiru said: “This is the leading cause of soil breakage, erosion, and gully erosion as well as landslides in the country especially in the South-East.
“Again, the soil in Enugu State and some parts of the zone are fragile soil, which can be washed away at any time if we negatively expose the vegetation by excessive cutting down of trees, shrubs, and under-growth plants.
“All these negative tendencies that lead to exposure of our people and their environment to negative climate change consequences are mainly due to using firewood and charcoal to cook. However, Atmosfair Save-80 Clean Cookstoves is here with solution”.
He further said that Save-80 Clean Cookstoves, when adopted by all homes both urban and rural in the country, would practically reduce firewood/charcoal usage to 80 per cent per home, thereby conserving the vegetation and forest ecosystem.
He said: “You will only need to use about 20 per cent of the normal firewood used for cooking a meal at home when you use this environmently-friendly; and 80 per cent cost-saving if you do buy firewood for cooking.
“The stove produces very little smoke; thus, being environmentaly-friendly and conserving the health of the cooking mother or cook; and the stove can be used outdoors even when it rains.”
In his speech, the Chairman, Board of Advisory of Atmosfair and former Nigerian Ambassador to Jordan, Ambassador Faruk Malami-Yabo said the environmentaly-friendly stoves would positively enhance cooking experience and save the environment from the negative effects of climate change.
Amb. Malami-Yabo said that the stove was built through German technology to last for not less than 15 years, while it can withstand daily extensive rugged use for the household. He said: “It is good we start taking conscious steps to address issues of climate change in our various localities by sensitising our people on it and adopting smart climate change technologies and procedures.”
One of the beneficiaries of the sensitisation, Mrs Onyekachi Ugwu, thanked the Council and Atmosfair for the sensitisation on climate change as well as the demonstration on how the clean and smart cooking stove would be used. Ugwu said: “This stove and its wonder pot is better and produces fast cooking results even as I wish that it can get to every household in the South-East.”
