The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), on Tuesday partnered relevant stakeholders to curb illegal wildlife trade in Nigeria.
Dr Joseph Onoja, NCF Director of Technical, disclosed this at a workshop titled, “Combating West African Illegal Trade in Vulture and it’s Part For Belief-Based Use”, in Abuja.
Onoja said that the collaboration and training of the stakeholders would not only curb illegal wildlife trade but would also protect them.
He said that the workshop was to create awareness on the public by building capacity on law enforcement agencies to ensure that vultures and other animals were protected.
According to him, there is awareness component which is to highlight the importance of vultures in our environment.
“Vultures play vital role in the environment in the sense that they help to clean our environment by removing all the carcass which can be deadly to our health.
“For instance, vultures is the only animal that can eat deadly animals and lock it into the system, but if dogs, rats or other animals eat such, they will still go out and pollute the environment with it.
“We can as well call vulture environmental sanitation animal, because they help to remove all the carcass and rubbish in our environment.
“If the carcass and rubbish remain in our environment, it can cause illness to our health sometimes such disease can lead to death.
“The aim of this workshop is to make sure that we protect the animals as well as the human life.
“We have engaged with some stakeholders such as sellers of vultures, traditional rulers, market people among others and we have come to an agreement that vultures are not as available as it used to be.
“Engaging with them is to have alternative that is sustainable, meanwhile, we have also discovered that it is part of their livelihood so, we can’t just deprive them of their livelihood.
“The plans we have is to ensu ready that it balance in the sense that stakeholders will not loose and the vultures can as well be protected,” he said.
Onoja said that Nigeria was signatory to Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fuara and Flora CITES, which seek to protect endangered species.
He said that the collaboration with other enforcement agencies would effectively improve the implementation of wild trade and curbing the illegal wildlife trade in the country.
Mr Timothy John, Head, Wildlife and CITES Management, Department of Forestry, Ministry of Environment, emphasised on the need to protect species of animals and plants in the environment.
John said that the ministry was embarking on various activities to ensure that illegal wildlife reduced in the country.
“Protecting the animals will give the next generation opportunity to see such animals but if we refuse to create this awareness now, the animals will gradually disappear.
”And, it will not be good for us to allow these animals to just leave the earth, we must do something,” he said.
(NAN)