Dr Ibrahim Goni is the Conservator-General of the National Park Service (NPS). He was part of the team from the National Forest Trust Fund (NFTF) that visited the headquarters of the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN) recently. PAUL OMOROGBE caught up with him during his visit. He spoke on how NPS has fared in the wake of the unprecedented challenges of the covid-19 pandemic and insecurity, and coping with biodiversity loss.
You went on a forest hike with the DG of FRIN. What is your impression about the environment?
It is my pleasure to be here. It is not my first time here. There has been drastic improvement in infrastructure, in the forest cover, and in the way the staff conduct themselves. To me, in my own opinion, I think FRIN has really transformed. The forest resources within FRIN day in and day out are building up. This is because I have not observed any degraded areas. Most of the degraded areas we have seen in the past have been planted up. The resources there have been stabilised.
Speaking about the National Park Services: over the years we have seen things happen that have never happened before. One of such was the covid-19 period and the lockdown that followed. What kind of effect has this had and your operations?
The impact of covid-19 is a global thing. It is multi-sectoral. In fact, it has cut across all the sectors, not most! Conservation is not an exception. The lockdown as a result of covid-19 has helped, within that period, to reduce the quantity of carbon dioxide that was emitted into the atmosphere. That means the world would have recovered a little bit from severe greenhouse gases. That is one good effect of the covid-19 pandemic.
The lockdown also reduced to the barest minimum the incidences of poaching and encroachment into our protected and conserved lands.
At that time, in some places, animals were reported to have migrated into communities because there was less human interference.
But on the other hand, covid-19 had actually reduced the movement of tourists and revenue nosedived. The activities of travel agents and tour operators were seriously affected. And these activities have impacted on our activities at the national parks.
It also affected the activities of hoteliers who provide accommodation and feeding for our visitors. The economic implication is a serious thing.
What is the situation now that we are gradually coming out of the covid period?
We are gradually recovering from covid, but another challenge that is facing us is insecurity.
How have you been able to manage that problem of insecurity?
The issue of insecurity has been very difficult. It has affected the movement of people as well. People now choose what type of transportation medium they use. People were going for the train if not for the recent incident that happened along the Abuja-Kaduna railway.
Air transport was also being patronised, except for the fuel hike, which has made aviation fuel very expensive. So, insecurity, like we said, has actually led to the occupation of certain spaces, that is forest areas that are vulnerable. That also has an implication for the national parks, because adjacent to every national park there is a forest reserve. So, once that forest reserve becomes vulnerable, that national park also becomes vulnerable.
We contend with this by virtue of interagency collaboration. We are meeting with sister agencies like the armed forces. We are also collaborating with the DSS in the gathering of intelligence. We are also working with the Civil Defence Corps in order to be able to face the challenge.
Government is also improving our capacity by virtue of scaling up our budget. That scaling up has enabled us to acquire some sophisticated kits for our officers and working tools.
How are you coping with biodiversity concerns? There have been issues raised about the loss of biodiversity across the country.
When you link up the issue of insecurity and the vulnerability of these protected and conserved areas, this is what leads to the loss of biodiversity. The vulnerability of these protected and conserved areas has led to what we call a collaboration between the bandits and the forest invaders- people who perpetrate unfriendly human practices in our forests like logging, hunting, and so on.
From the intelligence we are gathering now, we seem to see some collaboration between them and the bandits. So this is what is actually pushing forward this issue. Once we are able to reduce the incidence of invaders into the forest, we will be able to tackle this issue properly.
ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then