An environmentalist, Ms Gloria Bulus has advised Nigerians on the importance of plants and animal protection, stressing the need for biodiversity conservation.
Bulus, the founder of Bridge-That-Gap Initiative, an environmental NGO, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos State.
The expert said that as part of plans to mark the 2019 Earth Day, her group was set to engage Nigerians on the necessity of biodiversity conservation.
“Following this year’s Earth Day theme ‘Protect Species’, we want to engage Nigerians on the importance of biodiversity conservation.
“We will be engaging environmental stakeholders on the varying threat to biodiversity as it applies to Nigeria as a country.
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“We will have a panel discussion that will look into the laws and policies that influence biodiversity and wildlife in the country and how they can be stepped up.
“We really want to engage Nigerians on the importance of species conservation, especially wildlife and to sensitise them on its essence.
“The essence of the programme is for us to see a way forward in species conservation, draft a committee and see how to go about it.
“There are some key Nigerians involved in conservation biology and we intend to see how we can work with them to sensitise Nigerians,” the expert told NAN.
Bulus also harped on the need to address the trend of environmental toxicology and the need for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to act on it.
“We will also be discussing the migration patterns of certain animals as well as the growing effects of environmental toxicology; that is the use of pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals.
“The environmental toxicology aspect boils down to the farmers and the Ministry of Agriculture and has a long way to go because they supplied most of these chemicals to the local farmers.
“There are indices guiding the use of these chemicals, we environmentalists are not in support of GMOs but will rather support local farmers to engage climate-smart agriculture practices.
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“We want other environmentally-friendly alternatives for the farmers rather than chemicals that increase toxicology in our environment,” Bulus said.
The expert also urged Nigerians on the dangers of indiscriminate tree felling and its effect on biodiversity conservation.
“The thing is that there is a need to conserve our biodiversity in areas like tree planting especially.
“If we collate the records of fully loaded trucks conveying felled trees from one part of the country to another, then we will realise the harm being done to our forest reserves.
“If we can get the ministry of agriculture and the forestry department to strengthen their laws, we will be able to conserve our trees and avoid deforestation in the long run.
“There are laws governing species conservation but a lot of people do not know, we also want to engage the academia for research purposes,” she said.