Illegal mining, wildlife trafficking threaten Nigeria’s forests, says NPS

The National Park Service (NPS) has named illegal mining, wildlife trafficking, banditry and kidnapping as major threats to Nigeria’s forests and protected areas, and urged environmental journalists to help expose them.

Conservator-General Ibrahim Goni spoke on Tuesday in Abuja when members of the Environmental Media Correspondents Association of Nigeria (EMCAN) visited the Service’s headquarters.

He described journalists as strategic partners in protecting the country’s natural resources, saying many problems in national parks and forest reserves go underreported.

“We are comfortable to have you as partners. We are also comfortable to collaborate with you so that our issues can be given widespread visibility,” Goni said.

He said the Service worked with the Nigerian Army to close two illegal mining sites in Gashaka-Gumti National Park, which spans Taraba and Adamawa states, dislodging more than 4,000 miners.

He warned that removing miners could provoke resistance, and called for alternative livelihoods for affected communities.

Goni added that the Service is working with the Ministry of Solid Minerals on mining in Oyo State, and that about 17 miners have been arrested in Rivers State.

On wildlife crime, he said Nigeria features prominently in trafficking networks because smugglers use it as a transit route to seaports, moving specimens from Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

The Customs Service, NPS, NESREA and the Nigeria Police Force have formed an inter-agency committee, whose raids have led to seizures of live animals, carcasses and other specimens.

Goni also expressed concern that the country is losing close to 300 hectares of forest reserve daily, warning that continued loss could accelerate desertification.

He said Nigeria now has 17 national parks, 13 of them operational, up from seven before 10 more were established under the late former President Muhammadu Buhari. The expansion, he said, aims to restore degraded vegetation and support climate commitments.

EMCAN Chairman, Mrs. Joycelyn Ellakeche Adah, said the association’s new leadership, elected about two months ago, wants to close the communication gap between environmental agencies and the media.

She noted that the association has over 35 members, but only three or four media organisations regularly cover the NPS.

“As journalists, our job is to report on this sector. In every parastatal, there is an environment correspondent, and the job of that correspondent is to report on the sector,” she said.