In commemoration of this year’s International Day of Forest, IITA, in collaboration with Wild Africa Fund, launched an event on X tagged “ForestsInnovate2024” to foster an exchange of ideas and best practices on improving forest conservation in Africa.

Co-hosted by IITA Forest Center, RadioIITA, and Wild Africa Fund, the event had a nature enthusiast and musician, Laycon, and IITA Forest expert, Ademola Ajayi, bounce ideas on forests and forest innovation practices. Both proposed insightful recommendations to make our world a better place for humans, animals, birds, and all life forms.

During the event, Forestry Innovation Specialist at IITA, Ademola Ajayi, discussed the latest forest monitoring and management technologies used at IITA Forest Centre and the innovations designed to address deforestation.

IITA Forest Center is a nature-resource management center within the institute, which is committed to developing research for agricultural development. Ajayi emphasized the crucial role of the Forest Center in IITA’s mandate, saying, “Agriculture cannot thrive without sustainable management of the environment.” Agriculture involves the use of land, hence the need to manage land, the natural resource we all depend on for food, shelter, and commerce.

Laycon, an Ambassador of Wild Africa Fund and a Nigerian Musician shared his experience on his visit to IITA and reflected on how people in the creative industry (music and Nollywood) can lend their voices to forest conservation through their craft.

Layton proposed soft power as a sustainable forest management strategy to subtly, continuously, and consistently tell people about forest conservation and management through drama, music, policies, and sensitizations in grassroots relatable languages.

In conclusion, Ajayi proposed sustainable forest management to balance our logging needs with a matching reforestation rate and strict monitoring to enforce paper policies for the number of trees required to log per time green areas within urban centers to provide carbon sinks and relaxation areas for tourism.

Contributed by Victoria Idowu