By Femi Akinola
Ahead of President Bola Tinubu administration’s one year annivessary, the Minister of the Envrionment, Mallam Balarabe Abbas Lawal, in a press release issued by his ministry, listed over 20 achievements recorded by the administration wihin 365 days.
The achievements as contained in the release from the ministry tagged: ”Achievements of the Hounourable Minister of Environment , Malam Balarabe Abbas,” were in three categories. The includes projects and programmes already launched, the ongoing and those initiated by the ministry.
The most important of the achievements are the Sustainable Management of Forestry and Wildlife Resources between Nigeria and Cameroon, that of strealined stregthening of the National Guards to rid the nation’s National Parks of bandits and forestall poaching, illegal logging, and the signed bilateral Cooperation Framework Agreement on Trans-boundary Ecosystem Conservation.
The listed achievements also included fostered collaboration efforts with the Ministry of Agriculture to promote climate-smart agriculture for food security, convened a stakeholders to develop a sustainable plastic waste management framework, the unveiling of the Nigerian Circular Economy Roadmap.
Others include the launched National Clean Cooking Policy to promote sustainable cooking practices, the supervision of the production of 45 million assorted tree seedlings for afforestation programmes across the country, the launched 50×2030 initiative to minimize data gap, build the national statistics systems, and promote evidence informed agriculture in 50 low, lower-middle and middle-income countries by 2030.
Beside all the visible and touchable efforts made so far and achieved by the ministry since the inception of the current government at the centre, the release made mention of other ongoing initiatives such as recharging the Lake Chad to prevent avoidable catastrophic implications for the sub- region, advancing the Great Green Wall to halt the encroachment of the Sahara Desert, and collaborating with the United Kingdom and the European Union in particular, to meet Nigeria’s set clean energy objectives.
That asithe ongoing initiatives by the ministry include collaboration with the critical stakeholders such as the Nigerian Army, in which the latter will plant One billion trees in the next two years.
The release also note that the Federal Ministry of Environment had trained lawyers and judges on handling environmental crimes and establishing Environmental tribunal, ensuring proper management of the nation’s coasts and coastal development in collaboration with sub-national governments and and the World Bank.