Why Boki women plant Bird-Eye pepper to promote reforestation

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In the Boki LGA of Cross River State, many women are contributing to the regeneration of their forests, which have currently been decimated by illegal wood logging activities.

They have gathered as farmers to plant bird eye pepper, which they intend to harvest in large quantities for commerce.

According to Ambassador Florence Kekong, the coordinator of the local women farmers, the planting of this species of pepper in Boki communities is intentional.

Communities in the neighboring local government areas of Boki, Etung, and Obudu, according to her, are incredibly fortunate to have access to natural rainforests.

Therefore, birds that come to eat and spread it are drawn to the bird eye peppers.

“After consuming bird’s eye pepper, they frequently excrete the hot pepper in the forest, where it quickly sprouts and spreads on its own.

Then, the women could harvest it as they pleased.

She commended the female peasant farmers for their tireless efforts in restoring the forest, which has been destroyed and depleted by unauthorized tree cutting.

Kekong expressed displeasure over the fact that the community’s ongoing, severe environmental and forest damage disproportionately affects women.

She claimed that although the community’s women practice peasant farming rather than wood logging, they are still the ones who suffer the most from illegal wood felling.

“Natives who try to halt logging face threats every day.

“Women suffer the most. They are voiceless. The result is detrimental.

“Our farms are being destroyed by daring perpetrators of wood logging, allegedly backed by a powerful cabal.”

Another farmer, Mrs. Louis Dibang of Njua Kaku in the Irruan community of Boki LGA, said all the natural vegetables and mushrooms that hitherto, germinated on their own, are no more available due to deforestation and forest degradation.

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