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United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has deplored what it described as organised criminal trading in wildlife and forest products through Nigeria’s ports.
Country Representative, Oliver Stolpe, who spoke at a high-level meeting for launch of an analytic toolkit on combating wildlife crime in Nigeria, organised by the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), yesterday, in Abuja, noted that the most populous nation had one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world and increasing threats to wildlife due to the illicit business.
The United Nations agency said excessive and unsustainable deforestation, and mostly illegal extraction, threatens livelihoods of local communities, as well as species, whose homes are within the woods
Stolpe said: “Wildlife is not only threatened by the continued shrinking of their habitat, but also by professional poachers, as well as local hunters.
“Organised criminal trade in wildlife and forest products through Nigerian ports has created a threat to biodiversity across the entire region.”
He continued: “None of these developments has gone unobserved neither by the government of Nigeria nor the international community.
“While the ban on international trade in Nigerian Rosewood constitutes the most prominent measure taken at the international level, the legal framework has continued to evidence gaps in particular, as it concerns the penalties foreseen by the law.”
In his remarks, European Union Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Samuel Isopi, noted: “The central focus of the gathering in combating wildlife crime is as important as it is urgent for the survival of not just the animals we wish to protect, but also ourselves.
“Basically, this effort, when fully analysed, is about the preservation of human species, as much as it is about preservation of wild animals.”
Minister of Environment, Muhammed Abdulahi, represented by a director in the ministry, Stanley Jonah, clarified that the toolkit has four key elements –identifying current patterns of wildlife and forest offences, including their drivers and actors; analysing the criminal justice response, including the legislative, enforcement, prosecutorial and judicial systems in use.
It also provides “the means available for international cooperation; understanding the different links and actors in the wildlife and forest offences chain; and implementing measures to address and prevent wildlife and forest offences from being committed.”
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