Across large areas of Nigeria’s southeastern rainforest belt hundreds of communities are threatened by erosion because of decades of uncontrolled deforestation and other types of pressure on the land.

The town of Ekwulobia, or what remains of it, is a testament to the region’s environmental problems.

A year ago cracks in the soil from erosion on the outskirts of the town seemed harmless. But seasonal rains further weakened the fissures, triggering a landslide in August that swallowed up 400 homes and severed a major road, isolating several communities.

More than 2,000 people affected by the disaster in Ekwulobia sought shelter in the local primary school or with friends and relatives.

“We all had to vacate our homes and run as we saw the relentless approach of the gullies with every rainfall,” said Silas Okeke, an Ekwulobia resident who lost his home in the landslide. “We were lucky no one was killed.”

More than 1,000 severe soil erosion sites scar southeast Nigeria, according to the Environment Ministry. At least 700 of them are in Anambra State, with the worst cases in the Ekwulobia region. In Nanka, a few kilometres north of Ekwulobia, a 20-year-old march by erosion has created a canyon now marveled at by visitors.

Historic pressure

Until 150 years ago southeast Nigeria was covered by thick rainforests, said local agriculture specialist Theo Eze. Soil degradation first began with the indiscriminate planting of palm trees as the European demand for palm oil grew in the mid 19th century and expanded during the colonial era.

“The palm tree tends to generate soil salinity when you have a lot of them, which tends to loosen the soil,” Eze said.

In addition, with its dense population of up to 1,000 people per sq km, pressure on land in the region is intense. Relentless farming and grazing prevents the soil from recovering, said Eze.

Combined with other poor soil management practices, such as bush burning and large-scale felling of trees, the soil has been left weak and exposed, he said. Seasonal rains wash away the topsoil, and gullies and landslides follow if the process is not checked early.

More than 70 percent of all land in southeastern Nigeria is vulnerable to erosion due to land degradation, according to Uzo Egbuche of the Lagos-based Centre for Environmental Resources and Sustainable Ecosystems (CE-RASE). Federal, state and local governments often intervene in dramatic cases, such as when a road is cut.

Long-term solution

In the 1980s the federal government set up an ecology fund to help check desert encroachment in the north and soil and coastal erosion in the south. A parliamentary hearing revealed that the funds were often corruptly mismanaged.

Response to the environmental problems in the southeast has sometimes been delayed by disputes between tiers of government. The Anambra State government complains that it lacks the funds to tackle gully erosion - estimated to cost some US $400 million to remedy - and said federal intervention was required.

Moved by the extent of the Ekwulobia disaster, President Olusegun Obasanjo visited the area recently and promised urgent action to repair the damaged road and slow the growth of the gullies. But environmental experts believe longer term action is needed to reverse current practices that damage the soil and make it susceptible to erosion.

Egbuche says people must be educated on how to reverse soil degradation and the consequences it has wrought.

“The key is in replanting trees and bringing back the vegetative cover that will protect the soil against tropical rain,” he said.