The Federal Government has said the implementation of the N19 billion Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP, in the country would begin at the start of the dry season in October.

The project, which is being undertaken by the Goodluck Jonathan administration with support from the International Development Association, IDA, the Global Environment Facility, GEF, Trust Facility and the Special Climate Change Fund, SCCF, is initiated to reduce vulnerability to the ravaging erosion in targeted watersheds.

The seven states that would benefit in the first phase of the erosion project include Abia, Anambra, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu and Imo. The NEWMAP National Project Coordinator, Chikelo Nwune, disclosed this in Abuja yesterday while briefing journalists about the launch of the project due for Thursday. Nwune said the project is targeted at ecological challenges, particularly erosion.

According to him, NEWMAP is designed in response to the President’s request to the bank to support the country in addressing the age-long and yet worsening problem of land and water degradation and reduce vulnerability to ravaging gully erosion in targeted watersheds, hence supporting the country’s transformation agenda to achieve greater environmental and economic security.

He said: “The operation is an 8-year strategic investment loan of $508.59 million consisting of a $500 million IDA concessional loan blended with GEF and SCCF grants totalling $8,59 million.

“The area on focus presently falls within the high rainfall belt; in that belt, you find that the vegetation has tall green grass because of the duration of rainfall.

“Some of this gully sites are over 90 metres in depth and sometimes in weight it could be as wide as 300 to 500 meters wide; in terms of length, some of them could be up to 5 to 10 kilometres.

“We find that some of these have devastated their host communities, and not just affecting the roads. “In that ecological environment, the soils are predominantly very poor and the natural environment and the topography are included in the sense that it is not you and me that did it but nature allows the topography and tomopology to do that.

“This category ‘A’ Project will take a multi-scale and a multi-sector approach in implementation in the initial seven south eastern states of the federation,” Nwune stated.

The project coordinator, who said the unwholesome use of the natural resources in the country was responsible for the level of degradation being witnessed on the land, lamented the poor implementation of the nation’s environmental laws.