Delegate Warns Against Illegal Exploitation Of Non-Timber Products

By Walter Wilson Nana| Thursday,29 April, 2010|The Post|

Augustine Ashu Tende, Manyu Divisional Delegate of Forestry and Wildlife, has told the people of Manyu Division and other nationals living in the Division to desist from illegal exploitation of non-timber products, especially capialobia, commonly called Hausa stick.

The Delegate was reacting to recurrent complaints brought to his knowledge by some farmers and hunters in the Division that some individuals in Manyu and from neighbouring Nigeria were busy harvesting huge quantities of the Hausa stick in an unsustainable manner. “It is unacceptable that people harvest the Hausa stick, by uprooting it and taking it to other places out of the country. If they continue that way, that plant will be extinct from our forest, which is not good for our bio-diversity,” Ashu said.

Known in Manyu Division as the “hidden treasure”, Hausa stick is primarily harvested, dried and used by cattle keepers. Reports have it that Hausa stick, has over the years been a good source of money in the northern part of Nigeria, especially in places like Kano, Kaduna and Sokoto States where it is used in the construction of fences.

Some observers in Manyu Division hold that since cattle rearing is a major trade in some West African countries and the increasing interest shown by people of Northern Nigeria, some regulations should be enforced on the exploitation of this special non-timber product in a manner that Cameroon treasury can benefit.

It is reported that many years ago, a foreigner, taken to be an animal, from a distance, by a hunter, was shot in the forest. After investigations, the individual shot dead, was said to be harvesting the Hausa stick, with the intention to go sell them out of Cameroon.