By Patrick Imoh

The Minister of State for the Environment, Chief (Mrs.) Sharon Ikeazor, has said that human interaction with the ecosystem must remain balanced or else the risk of disrupting nature would be of dire consequence for Nigeria.

She maintained that for man to prevent future pandemic, he must restore, conserve and protect his biodiversity which is the foundation of life and being that cover millions of species, from plants, animals, fungi and bacteria while the ecosystem is the baseline that holds all of these together.

These are contained in the Minister’s opening speech at the Webiner on International Day of Biodiversity held recently at the University of Lagos. She decried the situation where the world and Nigeria’s biodiversity is threatened by habitat change, over-exploitation, invasive alien species, pollution and the effect of climate change.

The Minister noted that since biodiversity remains the basis for a sustainable future, post COVID-19 recovery efforts must be tied in with our climate actions and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the country to recover greener and better for ours and future generations, adding that nature-based solutions to climate, food and water security, and sustainable livelihoods, stem from biodiversity.

She stressed that the new fungi and microbial organisms said to be behind the various deadly diseases ravaging the world ought to have been discovered and catalogued earlier thus saving mankind so much pains and resources.

“Many nations of the world, particularly Africa, are signatories to numerous conventions of the United Nations in this all important area of biodiversity, its technology and safety management yet little or nothing seems to be happening in biodiversity protection and management in a good many of them.

Mrs. Ikeazor however said that the Nigerian government, through the Federal Ministry of Environment, is committed to the global post 2020 biodiversity framework under the convention of biological diversity and Nigeria is leading the ECOWAS Member States on this while noting that the 25million tree planting project to mitigate the effects of climate change as promised by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Climate Action Summit during the 74th UN General Assembly in New York and being executed through the National Great Green Wall Agency of the Ministry.

Also speaking, the Director General of Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF), Dr. Muhtari Aminu-Kano, stated that despite all humans technological advances, humans are completely dependent on healthy and vibrant ecosystems for their health, water, food, medicines, clothes, fuel, shelter, energy and many more.

Nature-based Solutions, he said, are therefore actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.

In his words, “ecosystems like forests and wetlands are critical to human wellbeing and provide enormous biodiversity conservation benefits.”

In proffering solutions to the current global/Nigerian biodiversity quagmire, Dr. Aminu Kano said: “preservation and restoration of wetlands and floodplains as flood management solution; protection of coastal wetlands/ecosystem is a natural risk management tool against coastal erosion; degraded forests can be restored by planting trees; protected areas are natural infrastructures that mitigate the impacts of climate change because they sink carbons in the environment are about the starting points.

“Therefore governments, corporate institutions and individuals must arise to address the issues affecting environmental sustainability in Nigeria and the world.”

Nigeria is endowed with enormous biodiversity including freshwater swamp forests, montane ecosystems, etc that have diverse species of fauna and flora with diverse genetic endowments that play vital and diverse roles in our economy, ecology and social lives.

This can be seen in the country’s mangrove forests that range from Bakassi to Badagry which provides sustainable livelihood to the people through shrimps and oysters found in the beautiful thick rain forests in the southern region which inhabits Gorillas and Drill Monkeys, as can be mirrored from the Cross River National Parks, all of which also provide natural solutions to combating coastal erosion.

Again is the Nguru wetlands in Northern Nigeria that hosts amazing birds with sound aquatic lives as well as the Okomu National Parks and Omo forest reserve that is host to elephants with various species of flora and fauna.

Picture: Ikeazor