Giwa Bisi Rodipe is in love with trees. The elder statesman who set up Bisrod Furniture years ago has been planting trees since 1986. Now, he has a private forest of over 600,000 trees which include mahogany, Walnut (Sida), Teak, Opepe, Masonia and Appa to mention but a few. On June 5th 2015 which marked the celebration of the 2015 World Environment Day, Giwa Bisi Rodipe was honoured with the Award of An Advocate for Private Participation in Forest Conservation and Industrialisation by the Federal Ministry of Environment in Abuja at the State House Conference Center.
At the award, Giwa Bisi Rodipe said this award is a motivation to tree planting, forestation exploits which started in 1984 (34 years ago). Giwa BisiRodipe is the founder and Chairman of Bisrod Furniture Company Limited, Ijebu-Ode, the largest Surviving Pioneer Furniture manufacturing company in Nigeria, he loves to call himself a carpenter. In fact, he is the inspirer and founder of BisiRodipe Evergreen Limited one of Nigeria’s biggest tree planters and owners of privately owned forests.
BisiRodipe, son of a Cocoa, Kolanut Plantation Farmer belongs to the exclusive club of high-classactivists, which includes the likes of former American Vice-President Al Gore, Kenyan Wangari Maathai, both Nobel laureates and former President Olusegun Obasanjo who has planted more than 2.5 million trees. They believe we can save our planet from the evil effects of global warming if only we plant trees and treat this planet with respect and abiding self-interest.
Bisi Rodipe brings to his passion for sustainable forest wealth creation, considerable clout and experience: He was the chairman of’ Ogun State Agric Development Corporation as well as the sectoral chairman of the Products .and Furniture Sector of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN.
He is the chairman of the Association of Shareholder of EcoBank Transnational Incorporated, ASETI, the Association that championed the restructuring of the Ecobank Transnational Incorporate ETI to profitability. For 10 years, he was a director of EcoBank Benin, Benin Republic.
He is now a director of EcoBank Nigeria PIc. For 3 consecutive terms, he was the executive chairman of Ijebu-Ode local government, an unprecedented feat. In 2003 he unsuccessfully sought nomination of his party to represent his people in the Senate. Now he is trying to give Nigeria the wake-up call so that we can partake from the God-given wealth in the Nigerian forests instead of focusing all our national energy and attention on the irreplaceable oil and gas resources.
He is convinced that Nigeria can get fabulous wealth, like Malaysia is doing, if only her citizens would plant Billions of trees annually and by careful husbandry of our forest wealth. As a first step, he wants individuals and organizations to get involved, instead of leaving the Programme of tree planting, curtailing the expanding Sahara Desert, stopping deforestation and combating global warming, to governmental bureaucracy and platitudes.
“Other highly valued mineral resources require billions upon billions of Naira to mine and process, while only few millions of Naira is needed for tree planting for the tree planters to reap billions of Naira in return, yet many investors and stakeholders in Nigeria fail to pay attention to this valuable and viable venture of tree planting.,” he said.
Bisi Rodipe is asking you to join him in seeking wealth in the forest. By doing this, you will become part of a global army that is working to stem the tide of global warming and restore the earth’s ecological balance. BisiRodipe said in the past, Nigeria forest was dense with varieties of tropical hardwood, especially the best mahogany in the world which was named Sapele Mahogany.
“Then rainfalls were regularly accompanied by hailstorms or snowflakes until the 1960s; The disappearing of plateau snowfalls in Jos in the 1940s, we ignore the dryness of Lake Chad and continue to search for oil around Lake Chad, the frequent and increasing Ocean Surge in Lagos that is costing the .nation billions upon billions of Naira annually to defend. The unusual flooding, expansion of desertification, increase heat waves, distortion in the period of rainfalls, etc.
Infact, he claimed, the younger generation of Nigerian has never experienced hailstorms and snowflakes; not even Jos, which history recorded as experiencing the Plateau Snowfalls, can claim to witness Hailstorms or Snowflakes again, he said. “We need to ask ourselves why these Snowfalls, hailstorms or snowflakes disappeared from our side of the planet.
Does it occur to us that gradually it could lead to wider spread of desert encroachment into the rain forest zone of southern Nigeria? Nobody can deny the increasing heat waves into southern Nigeria, a fore runner to desert encroachment to the rain forested southern zone of Nigeria”.
He says if you join the Nigerian Tree Planter Crusader, you will help to create and sustain millions of Plantation jobs for many generations to come for loggers, carpenters, furniture makers, tree exporters, builders, tree seed collectors, tree seed nursery horticulturists and tree planters.
Large plywood industries that have closed down will re-open and many more will be built and Nigeria will again become a Forest Sustainable Nation, which will qualify her for Certification to join the League of Timber Exporting Nations; Currently, wood/timber leaving Nigeria does not bear Nigeria’s name at the highly’ priced International Timber Market; Regrettable Nigeria Timber Export are currently poorly under priced.” BisiRodipe is asking you to take action today. He started planting trees in 1986, 21 years ago.
Now, he has private forest of 600,000 trees including mahogany, walnut (sida), teak, opepe, mansonia and appa. He is making preparation to acquire more land and plant five million trees in the next few years. With men like BisiRodipe, our earth will survive with its forests, our game and bush meat would have a place to thrive, we will be able to roll back the expanding carpet of the Sahara Desert and the coming generations would have more to inherit than a blighted earth from deforestation, oil pollution and global warming.
Rodipe’s message:
Let’s Cultivate The Habit Of Tree Planting As An Investment. Let’s Make Nigeria forest Sustainable Nation.
If you want to be A Nigerian Tree Planter you can contact Bisikodipe at Bisrod Furniture
Factory, 39, Aiari Road Ijari, Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. Better still, you can send an email to bisirodipe@thenigeriantreeplanters.com, thenigeriantreeplanter@yahoo.com, or visit our
website on www.thenigeriantreeplanters.com
