National Park Service in forefront of climate change mitigation – Conservator-General

Dr Ibrahim Goni, Conservator-General, National Park Service has said the service was in the forefront of climate change mitigation, drought and desertification in the country

Goni Said this when the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirate(UAE) to Nigeria, Dr Fahad Al Taffaq visited the National Park headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

He said that the service also played important role in tackling ravaging impact of erosion and floods.

“The world is running out of time to effectively tackle the climate crisis and we must therefore change course and step up our ambition in order to prevent the worst climate impacts.

“Climate and nature are intricately linked, so we would not be able to solve the global loss of nature without solving the climate crisis.

“In turn, when we restore nature, we create healthy ecosystems, which locks away more carbon and helps stabilise our climate.

“This is why we at the National Park have stepped up action, and will continue to step up plans, by bringing more actors to the table to save Nigeria from the imminent effects of climate change,” he said.

Goni said the action should not just be about policy making but required a total commitment by all.

He said bush burning was a major challenge to those in protected and free areas, and advised Nigerians to avoid lighting fires, especially during this season of harmattan to avoid wildfires.

He said the activities of hoodlums, kidnappers, bandits, cattle rustlers, illegal logging, water poisoning and mining had become a source of worry for the national park.

Goni, however, said a total of 607 suspects had been arrested between January and November 2019 for various offences.

He said sighting of endangered species such as chimpanzee, leopard, gorilla, elephant, lion, buffalo, hippo, vulture, wild hog, gazelle wild dog, etc had become increasingly difficult in the nations national parks.

Goni said the UAE could help Nigeria in the area of reintroducing some of these endangered species back to the wild.

Al Taffaq said the purpose of the visit was to see how the UAE could collaborate with Nigeria to reintroduce species that were extinct back to the wild in Nigeria.

He said UAE placed importance on wildlife and had reintroduced many species, which were being extinct back to the environment.

According to him, we have also identified certain habitats across the globe where those animals which were extinct are being reintroduced in some parts of the Sahara.

“In Nigeria we can identify how we can execute several initiatives in various national parks and reserves and identify species that are extinct and we are looking forward to our collaboration to reintroduce them back to the wild.

“That is the purpose of the visit. So we hope you get more ideas from everyone.

“I believe the environment sector, especially wildlife is an important diamension in our relationship and it is something we can make the differences, he said.

It was reported that high point of the event included a short video on how the UAE reintroduced the Oryx animal that was going extinct back to the wildlife in Chad and Tree planting by the Ambassador.