Stakeholders Urges To Redouble Efforts in Addressing Environmental challenge in Nigeria

By Aviashima Toom, Abuja

The Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF), on Thursday expressed worry over land degradation and other natural resources, calling on relevant stakeholders support in addressing the menace confronting the country.

The NCF Director-General, Dr Muhtari Aminu-Kano, made the expression at a National Exports Consultation workshop on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, organised by NCF, in Abuja.

He said that the effort and support of the stakeholders would address the environmental challenge confronting the country as a nation

Aminu-Kano said that the workshop comprises of Ministry of Environment and other critical stakeholders from different sectors pulled together to deliberate on how to restore the degraded land and natural resources in the country.

“The lost of nature is a serious thing every where in the world. At the same time difference sector of the economy are responsible for this lost and it has huge impact on our society.

"Our clean water, the Air we breathe, our rich soil, medicine, and food all depend on nature. So country like Nigeria which is rated the highest county of deforestation in the world which resulted to naturally disaster is suppose to take this negotiation very serious

"So what ever we decide here still depend on how well, and if our voice is not strong enough we will come back and suffer the consequences. And so how can we strengthen our own, how can we make sure that Nigeria interest are well taking? it all depends on how well we come to an arguable conclusion.

"So this meeting is political but also technical, and so we need the right technical input, we need to provide the right armunations and arrows that will better our negotiation

"The ministry of environment and the NCF are collaborating and at the same time calling on Nigerians to participate and show interest.

“We are gathering to discuss and exchange ideas and knowledge on how this can be managed.

“We want to make sure that the deliberation will be a combine efforts not just involving government alone but all relevant stakeholders in Nigeria to discuss on what should be done as a country,’’ Aminu-Kano said.

He said the collaboration would go deep to interact with other countries, adding that Nigeria has really lose a lot of her land and nature

“Nigeria is rated the highest deforestation in the world, this means that the nature is already going down; we are facing environmental problems such as desertification, soil erosion, traffic of the endangered species among others.

“We need to act fast, we are particularly facing all these because of the huge population which is increasing, and our land is not increasing rather its actually decreasing.

“Also our impact in nature and natural resources is getting deeper and deeper. A lot of loss of natural resources happening in the world is because of human activities,’’ he said.

He noted that there was the need to do something urgent and act fast to address the problem as people are going around capturing endangered species, cutting down trees indiscriminately.

“Another major issue that has contributed to the loss of land and natural resources is agricultural expansion, climate change and direct exploitation of natural resources.

“I believed that effective support of every Nigerian will go a long way to address the issue appropriately,’’ he said.

Prof. Babajide Aleph, from the University of Lagos, said that the essence of the meeting was to put in place, a Nigerian picture of how natural resources can be conserved.

Aleph said that nature was made to be used by human being, but should be manage in a sustainable manner.

According to him, the essence of this meeting is to find means by which we can conserve the biodiversity, biological resources that God has endowed us.

“Nations have come together through the auspices of the United Nations trying putting together steps and strategy within a framework to ensure that we are able to put in place processes that will make address the environmental challenge.

“Our gathering is also to ensure that as much as we use nature, we are also able to restore nature because there is no harm in using nature. It is use for food, for drugs and for soul mates.

“But we want to let people know that as we take nature we ensure that we replace it in a sustainable manner that is the only way we can restore and conserve our land and natural resources,’’ he said.