As part of a proactive measure to sustain the gains of the Ogoni Clean-up Programme, particularly the Mangrove Restoration Project, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) has continued the pilot scheme for the distribution of clean energy cookstoves to 100 shoreline community women in Ogoni at an event which was held in Kpor, Gokana LGA, Rivers State.
The initiative is aimed at not only to discourage the cutting of mangroves, but also to determine the effectiveness of the use of cookstoves to reduce the impact of mangrove harvesting for firewood on HYPREP’s restored mangrove areas to reduce deforestation and conserve it.
To ensure the initiative is fit-for-purpose, data from the beneficiaries would be collected through copies of questionnaire and Focused Group Discussions (FGDs). The beneficiaries were purposively drawn across 8 shoreline communities in Gokana LGA( Bomu, Bodo, Gbe, Lewe, Goi, Kpor, B.Dere and K.Dere).
The result, if positive, will have HYPREP scale up the distribution in a bid to ensuring sustainability of its mangrove restoration project, reduce carbon emission, improve health of local community women and ultimately attain environmental sustainability in Ogoni.
Beneficiaries say they are happy with the initiative and would be willing to corporate with HYPREP towards driving sensitization against the cutting of juvenile mangroves, while acknowledging the idea.
While this speaks to HYPREP’s bottom-top paradigm in its projects implementation, it further reinforces community inputs and feedback towards effective project actualisation.
At date, over 1.4 Million Mangrove seedlings have been planted across 560 ha of oil degrade mangrove areas. HYPREP targets to plant an overall 10,000 mangroves in its Mangrove Restoration Project in Ogoni. The actualisation and sustainability of this largely dependent on community buy-in and support.
Project Coordinator, Professor Nenibarini Zabbey was represented at the event by Ichibor Gowon, Legal Adviser of the Project
