Vice President Namadi Sambo yesterday inaugurated the National Council on Shelterbelt and Afforestation, nine years after it was set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

Inaugurating the council in Abuja, Sambo pledged that government would ensure that all issues regarding ecological problems were speedily addressed.

Members of the council are the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ministers of Environment, Finance, Youth Development, Information and Water Resources and the National Planning Commission.

Other members are the Ministers of Agriculture and Rural Development; Science and Technology, and Women Affairs and Social Development, the Chief Economic Adviser to the President and the Permanent Secretary, Ecological Fund Office.

The council also has a technical committee under the chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment.

The vice-president, who is also the chairman of the council, charged members to put in their best to ensure the success of activities of the council.

He recalled that the council was set up on Jan. 19, 2004, with the then vice-president as chairman.

He noted, however, that with the coming on stream of the Great Green Wall initiative in 2005, the council became dormant before it was recently resuscitated by the Federal Executive Council.

In her presentation, Minister of Environment, Hajiya Hadiza Mailafiya, commended President Goodluck Jonathan and Sambo for resuscitating the council and their determination to address the myriad ecological problems confronting the country.

She said the Great Green Wall initiative would be implemented in the frontline states of Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Jigawa, Kano, Yobe and Borno.