The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) on Wednesday received wildlife monitoring and enforcement equipment from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The Director-General of NESREA, Prof. Aliyu Jauro, said while receiving the equipment in Abuja that the equipment were to be used to combat wildlife crime in the country.
Jauro expressed appreciation to the development partner for the donation of the gadgets.
“Traffickers have adopted sophisticated methods of trafficking wildlife.
“However, the provision of real time equipment will greatly enhance wildlife monitoring, investigation, intelligence gathering, enforcement, evidence collection, data generation, data management and transmission,” he said.
The NESREA boss said that Nigeria was taking all the necessary steps to rid the country of wildlife crimes.
He said the recent destruction of seized wildlife stockpiles was intended to discourage perpetrators of the crime.
He said it was also meant to send out the signal that the country would not tolerate any form of wildlife crime on its soil.
Jauro said that the necessary checks had been put in place at the Nigerian border posts to frustrate the activities of those who sought to use the country as a transit hub for illegal shipment of controlled wildlife and their products.
“The gadgets will be deployed to the Agency’s zonal and state field offices, particularly, those that have been identified as hotspots for traffickers.
Responding, the UNODC Country Representative, Dr Oliver Stolpe, commended the efforts of the Nigerian Government in reducing the rate of wildlife crime in Nigeria.
He said that NESREA as the enforcement authority would continue to receive the support it needed to achieve its mandate.
Stolpe reiterated UNODC’s commitment to continue to support Nigeria to combat all forms of wildlife crimes against the environment.
“We pledged to continue to support Nigeria to combat all forms of wildlife crimes as well as deepen our collaboration to rid Nigeria of wildlife crime,” he said.
Stolpe was represented by Folusho Adelekan, National Programme Officer and Lead, Wildlife and Forest Crime.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the equipment donated to NESREA include GPS trackers, digital binoculars, digital video camera, laptops, desktops, weighing scales and walkie –talkies.
Others are foot wears, magnifying lens, digital camera binoculars, calipers, among others.