Yesterday being the International Day of Forests, the Global Green Environmental Network (GGEN), an Ekiti State-based non-governmental organisation, in partnership with the Green to Abundance Development, the Empowerment Foundation and the Global Green Grants Fund, engaged secondary school students in tree planting in the state.

Speaking on this year’s theme, ‘Forests and Health’, at AUD Comprehensive School, Ado-Ekiti, on Tuesday, Temitope Ayodele, the GGEN program officer, emphasised the need to prioritise the survival of the environment as it has a direct bearing on human lives.

“Everyone should cultivate the habit of conserving the environment through tree planting, and not just planting, but seeing that the trees are nurtured for these purposes,” he said.

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He encouraged the students and stakeholders at the event to revive the culture of planting trees, noting that if no conscious effort was taken to prevent the extinction of trees, “we may begin to trade our lives with death because oxygen would then be a thing of the past”.

The program lead further emphasised the importance of carrying young ones along in the effort to create a green environment as a way of tackling increasing carbon emissions and climate change.

Stakeholders in environmental conservation at the event also took turns to harp on protecting trees and nature in the best interest of humans.

Ayodele explained that the organisation deliberately chose the secondary school as the right place to mark this year’s celebration because the students, who were mostly in their impressionable years, could sustain the message for a long time.

The high point of the event was the planting of various species of trees on the school premises. Seedlings were also distributed to people in attendance to plant at their different locations.

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Dr. Sikiru Olowoyo, GGEN’s CEO; Akinluyi Felix, the Technical Adviser to the Governor of Ekiti on Climate Matters; the state’s director of forestry; retired directors of forestry; AUD school principal, forest and environmental officers, ED Gold Heart Foundation, students and other stakeholders were at the event.