President Muhammed Buhari has approved the establishment of 10 new national parks in the country.
The Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, disclosed this in her keynote address at the official launch of the largest wildlife conservation campaign in Africa by WildAid.
WildAid is a non-profit organisation working to protect wildlife from illegal trade and other imminent threats.
The event held at the Oriental Hotel in Victoria Island was attended by the state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, WildAid President, Peter Knights OBE, the Director-General of National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, Prof. Aliyu Jauro and representatives from the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Nigerian Customs Services and other agencies.
The minister said the President approved the establishment of the 10 national parks from the existing forest reserves in the country due to the threat faced by endangered species like the pangolins, lions, elephants, manatees and others.
She commended the collaborative effort of WildAid in tackling illegal wildlife trade in Nigeria.
Ikeazor said: “We are all culprits of bush meat consumption as it is a phenomenon in both rural and urban communities, posing environmental risks and extinction of threatened species.
“In-country and trans-border trafficking is quite alarming, and Nigeria has been tagged a ‘transit hub’ for this illegality.
“The phenomenon also constitutes high security and public health risk with the spread of zoonotic diseases such as Lassa Fever, Ebola Virus, and recently COVID-19.”
