By Job Osazuwa

For the love of wildlife, influential voices on January 6 converged on Lagos to inspire Nigerians to end illegal bush meat consumption and wildlife trade.

Some of the celebrities who were in Lagos for the launch of the campaign against wildlife destruction and deforestation were Nollywood star, Stephanie Linus, David Adedeji Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, comedienne, Emanuella Samuel, and Miss Tourism Nigeria, Mercy Jessica Odjugo. Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, and the Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Prof. Akin Abayomi, were also at the event to educate Nigerians on why they need to preserve the ecosystem for the benefit of the human race. 

It was a public conservation awareness campaign in Nigeria, sponsored by a non-profit organisation, WildAid, with a mission to reduce demand for illegal bush meat in major urban and rural centres. According to the NGO, the pace at which wildlife was disappearing had become worrisome.

With the slogans “Keep them wild, keep us safe” and “Poaching steals from us all,” WildAid is collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Environment and other government agencies, media houses and celebrities to reverse the ugly trend of wildlife extinction.

President of WildAid, Mr. Peter Knights, stated that, with its dynamism and cultural influence, Nigeria could turn things round for wildlife and become a regional leader in wildlife protection, which could boost the economy through tourism and safeguard the Nigerian public from zoonotic diseases.

He commended the Nigerian government for the commitment so far in reviving the country’s wildlife that has been hugely depleted. He explained the need for the campaign to be sustained, stressing that the benefits were immeasurable. 

“We need to create public and political will for wildlife conservation. Today, Nigeria has no surviving cheetahs, rhinos or giraffes and fewer than 50 lions, 100 gorillas, 500 elephants and 2,300 chimpanzees left in the wild. Despite ongoing conservation efforts, poaching for body parts and meat, along with habitat loss from deforestation, infrastructure development and agricultural expansion threaten wildlife in Nigeria.    

“Illegal bush meat consumption is widespread across Nigeria’s top cities. Commissioned by WildAid, a survey by GlobeScan revealed 71 per cent of the respondents say they have consumed bush meat at some point in their lives.

“Nigeria has emerged as the top transit point in the world for illegal ivory and pangolin scale trafficked from Africa to Asia. Lagos is a major route for this trafficking. Between 2016 to 2019, over half of the pangolin scales seized globally came from Nigeria.

“With the right protection, right laws and enforcement and public awareness, we can turn the situation around and rebuild our wildlife conservation,” he said.

Ikeazor said, if Nigerians continue to poach their wildlife and cultivate the forest, rainfall and the oxygen human beings breathe would be gravely affected. She urged everyone to do the right thing, stressing that it was time the country protected its natural heritage.

The minister stated that efforts needed to be doubled to restore, conserve and sustainably manage Nigeria’s valued wildlife diversity resources spreading across swamp, mountain, low land forests and coastal vegetation, Savannah, guinea Savannah with a lot of wildlife species.

The minister said that statistics has shown that Nigeria was losing so much due to illegal human activities.

“We have our national plant and national bird, but all these are going into extinction and we must reverse it. As part of the ongoing efforts, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved 10 more national parks. The Federal Government of Nigeria is committed to protecting, restoring, and promoting sustainable use of our biodiversity.

“Our survival and overall wellbeing depend on how friendly and sustainable our world is and how its biodiversity is managed.

“The alarming rate of over-exploitation of these natural resources calls for urgent, increase and proactive actions to reverse the trend. We need to join forces with this laudable initiative by WildAid so that much will be achieved in rescuing and protecting these animals that are fast going into extinction.

“We will support the sustainable management of forests, combat desertification, land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss. Our collaboration with relevant agencies and stakeholders to stem the tide of wildlife over-exploitation and trafficking has led to the development and implementation of strategies to combat corruption risk associated with transnational organized wildlife crime.

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“We must also work to actively promote and institutionalise the one-health approach, which recognises the intrinsic connection between human health and the ecosystem. If we must prevent the next pandemic, we must key into the long-term commitment to create a healthy and safer environment for everyone.

“Majority of us are culprits of bush meat consumption. This phenomenon constitutes health risk with possible spread of Lassa fever, Ebola virus, monkey pox, SARS and recently COVID-19, which originated from animals,” she said.

On his part, Prof. Abayomi explained that there was no distinction between human health and the health of the environment. He agreed with other speakers that human beings are part of the ecosystem. He said that saving the ecosystem amounts to saving the people.

“It is important that we stand together to speak against this exploitation and abuse of these animals, environmental degradation and natural resources. Lack of wildlife conservation is a serious bio-security threat that leads to increase likelihood of natural disaster, global warming and significant change in our food production.

“Wild animals belong to their ecosystem where they provide protective roles to man. When we destroy the forest, we destroy the harmony of nature, and then there will chances of these animals coming in contact with human beings, thereby spreading the pathogens that belong in the forest to people in towns and cities. We are going through extensive deforestation in Nigeria through bush burning and the rest.

“Forest converts carbon to oxygen for human beings. Forest cools down the environment and creates rain by capturing moisture and allowing cloud to form which generates rain. Desertification leads to loss of livelihood for millions of people.

“We have not been very good custodians of our ecosystems. We plunder, poison, extract and deplete our biodiversity not realising that without the free gifts of nature that these biomes provide, we will cease to exist. When you degrade biodiversity, there will be movement of these infectious diseases from the animal kingdom to human population.

“Disrupting the delicate balances of nature with our heavy human footprint causes major repercussions such as severe weather changes and biological threats. If we continue this path without a major and drastic reversal, we are inducing an existential threat scenario, meaning the earth may become too hostile for humans or other life forms to exist,” the commissioner warned.

According to him, mother nature doesn’t need man to exist, but man needs mother nature to survive, adding that nature has provided enough to meet the people’s needs but not their greed.

Davido said that every stakeholder must continue to work for the betterment of the environment and the people in Nigeria, Africa and the world.

He said that there should be natural habitat where animals should be kept safe and where people could go and view for pleasure.

Also, Linus, who is one of the ambassadors of the campaign said: “I became part of this awareness creation because wildlife conservation in Nigeria needs to be given adequate attention. I want my children and yours to grow up to see an elephant and lion. We can only achieve this if we stop killing these species and destroying our forest. Our wildlife is an essential part of our natural heritage and it is sad that we have lost a lot of it, but there is hope if we all join the campaign.”

Emmanuella said that she was excited when she saw one of the wildlife animals in Lagos. She pleaded with Nigerians to contribute their own quota in keeping the animals safe.

The director of Forestry Department, Federal Ministry of Environment, Kolawole Adekola said: “An aggressive, high-scale and continuous publicity campaign is imperative to raise awareness of the precarious trends in wildlife exploitation and trafficking. A participatory approach towards achieving sustainable management and utilisation of the forest ecosystem resources also needs to be promoted. The Federal Government through the Ministry of Environment is committed and collaborating with WildAid to achieve this.”

As learnt, WildAid is working with the Lagos State government to update its wildlife protection laws along with Nigeria Customs Service and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) to support efforts to tackle the illegal wildlife trade and prevent the use of Nigerian ports and airports as transit hubs for wildlife trafficking.

Knights added: “While most wildlife conservation groups focus on protecting animals from poaching, WildAid primarily works to reduce global consumption of wildlife products such as elephant ivory, rhino horn and shark fin soup. With an unrivalled portfolio of celebrity ambassadors and a global network of media partners that WildAid leverages on, we are spreading the simple message of “when the buying stops, the killing can too.

“Since 2015, we have been working in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Gabon and Cameroon to highlight the urgency in protecting wildlife. Using celebrity ambassadors from singers and athletes to ministers and influential religious councils, we aim to reach the minds of the public at all levels of society with the tagline “poaching steals from us all.”