Nigeria still being used as wildlife trafficking route – DG NPS warns

Nigeria is losing adjacent to 300 hectares of wood reserve daily, portion the state is progressively being utilized arsenic a transit way for amerciable wildlife trafficking, the National Park Service, NPS, has warned.

The Conservator-General of the NPS, Mr Goni, raised the concerns erstwhile helium received members of the Environmental Correspondents Association of Nigeria, EMCAN.

Goni said traffickers determination wildlife specimens from neighbouring countries, including Chad, Niger and Cameroon, done Nigeria to seaports for onward transportation.

He disclosed that the Nigeria Customs Service, NPS, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and Nigeria Police Force had formed an inter-agency committee to combat wildlife trafficking.

According to him, the committee has conducted raids resulting successful the seizure of unrecorded animals, carcasses and different wildlife specimens.

He called for sustained collaboration among instrumentality enforcement agencies and the media to exposure trafficking networks and fortify accountability.

On wood conservation, Goni identified amerciable logging and hunting arsenic large threats, informing that continued wood nonaccomplishment could accelerate desertification and worsen biology degradation.

He said the enlargement of Nigeria’s nationalist parkland strategy was partially aimed astatine restoring degraded vegetation and strengthening the country’s effect to clime change....