Don proffers solutions to illegal wildlife trade

A Professor of microbiology and
chairperson, Akwa Ibom State chapter of
the Nigerian Environmental Society,
Comfort Etok, proffered what she described
as environmental and cost-saving solutions
to the menace of illegal wildlife trade in
the country.
She said the menace could be checked
through the provision of incentives to the
local communities to conserve wildlife in
their area, setting up of more national,
private and community based parks and
partnership with non-governmental
organisations to create awareness on
wildlife conservation.
Speaking in Uyo at an event to mark the
2016 World Environment Day, themed
‘Fight against illegal trade in wildlife,’ Etok,
who is the chairperson of the University of
Uyo’s Table Water Management
Committee, identified overhunting or over-
harvest of wildlife reserves for food,
fashion and profit as the major threats to
wildlife conservation.
She was, in a statement on Friday, quoted
as saying that these practices result in
habitat destruction through uncontrolled
logging, oil spills, highway and urban
development, exploitation for fuel wood,
degradation, fragmentation, invasion of
non-native species, pollution, climate
change and their attendant adverse
environmental effects on humans, flora and
fauna.
While lamenting that most of the tropical
rainforest that harboured chimpanzees,
gorillas, lions, forest elephants and others
were lost to unfriendly environmental
practices, she called for strict adherence
to wildlife laws, international treaties,
adequate funding, public support and
strong enforcement to existing legal
provisions to check wildlife excesses in
Akwa Ibom State and Nigeria.
Source: punch ng