Nigeria: Dead baby trees by the millions as reforestation fails

Of the 50 million seedlings planted every year in the 11 northern Nigeria states worst effected by desertification, 37.5 million wither and die within two months, environmental officials say. “The 12.5 million seedlings that make it to maturity are not enough to create a deforestation-reforestation equilibrium, especially given the fact that a large number of the trees that grow are later chopped down,” Kabiru Yammama of the National Forest Conservation Council of Nigeria [NFCCN] told IRIN.