NIGERIA

Sensitising Muslims in the Northern region of Nigeria to the ethical dimensions of Islamic environmental practice.

OBJECTIVES

To organise and conduct a three-day workshop to impart Islamic environmental knowledge to Muslim environmental NGOs and other institutions interested in the Islamic method of addressing conservations issues. The workshop will specifically target NGOs, community leaders and individuals who are active with the "Greenbelt Project" in Kano State area. The workshop will highlight Islamic environmental ethics as well as its practical manifestation with special emphasis being given to conservation and reforestation.

This will be followed by a process of evaluation to consider the practical application of the teachings and to further consider the popularisation of this knowledge in the wider community..

LOCATION

The choice of part of the Kano State area of the Greenbelt Project is informed by the consideration that overwhelming population of the area is Muslim. This will enable us to make comparisons with the performance of other communities in this area living in similar conditions within the Greenbelt Project.

BACKGROUND

The proposed location of the project lies in Northern Nigeria and is close to the Sahara. It has over the years witnessed increasing desert encroachment with disastrous consequences to the lives of the local people. This phenomenon has been ascribed to many factors including intense farming by mono farmers, indiscriminate grazing by Fulani herdsmen, bush burning by hunters, and tree felling for cooking. It is easy to observe that Islamic environmental ethics do not cohere with the behaviour of Muslims in this area.

The Greenbelt Project was conceived and is now being implemented by the Federal Government of Nigeria to deal with the problem of desert encroachment. It initiated a massive programme of tree planting across an area from the east to the west of northern Nigeria in order to check desert encroachment from the Sahara.

It is hoped that this proposed workshop would support the project by supplying a much needed educational element to the programme.

IMPLEMENTATION

It is proposed that the best time to conduct the workshop will be the middle of 2004 in Kano. This will provide the team with adequate time for fieldwork, appraisal and the organisation of the workshop itself. It is also proposed that there be a post training evaluation to consider the best methods of applying the teachings in the field and also the spreading of this teaching to a wider audience.

LEAD ORGANISATIONS AND CONTACT PERSONS

Ali Ahmad
Director
The African Centre for Sustainable Development
Kano, Nigeria.
Email: [email protected]
Tel. 084 669 605
Fax. 084 66504