The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) planted 800 tree seedlings as part of efforts to preserve the environment and mitigate climate change in the country.
The exercise took place at Kpegyi Junior Primary and Secondary School, Abuja, and the National Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) grounds in the community.
The managing director of DBN, Dr. Tony Okpanachi, said they were observing World Environment Day and believe a practical demonstration of that is to reach out and plant trees to preserve the environment.
He said that sustainability is important to DBN, which is one reason they are participating in the tree-planting exercise. Dr. Okpanachi emphasized the importance of starting environmental preservation today to sustain the environment for the future.
“For us, it’s not just about planting trees, but to see the trees grow and ensure that this exercise continues because the risk for us in the future is to take care today.
According to him, our focus is on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), but we also want to lead by example and demonstrate what can be done. “Apart from the environment, there are economic trees such as mangoes and other economic trees that ultimately also add to the ability for people to generate income. So there are reasonable economic and environmental benefits for people too. The signaling effect is the most important for us. This is what we need to do on a larger scale. This is the example we need to create in the whole country.
Dr Okpanachi explained that we started with the school because we want primary and secondary school students to begin to imbibe those cultures so that in the future, we address environmental preservation not only on a large scale but also from a very young age.
While speaking on sustainability, he said the organisation would monitor the planted trees.
“We are going to ensure that it’s not just planting and going away, but we will check on these trees from time to time to see how they are doing. Beyond that, this is just a start. We want to replicate this in different parts of the country. Whatever we are doing here, our colleagues are also doing it in Lagos to ensure that we do this on a sustainable basis, not just here. We all know the diverse effects of carbon emissions, and in our little way, we want to see how we can begin to reduce them and how we can begin to protect and preserve our environment. Today, we were planning to plant about 800 trees. Right behind me, you can see the impact of environmental degradation,” he said.
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