Protecting Biodiversity: Insights on Conservation, Challenges and Solutions
Biodiversity, also called biological diversity, according to World Wildlife (WWF) is all the different kinds of life you will find in one area—the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms like bacteria that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems, like an intricate web, to maintain balance and support life.
Humans depend on biodiversity for so many things including food obtained from agro-biodiversity ecosystem while over half of the global GDP is dependent on natural tropical forests. Also, more than one billion people rely on forests for their livelihoods while land and the ocean absorb more than half of all carbon emissions.
Sadly, up to one million species are threatened with extinction, while 85% of wetlands, such as salt marshes and mangrove swamps, which absorb large amounts of carbon, have disappeared.
The main driver of biodiversity loss is the use of land by humans for food production and other purposes. Climate change worsens the situation by altering marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems around the world; It has also caused loss of local species, increased diseases, and driven mass mortality of plants and animals.
Mr John Agbo Ogbodo, a former Vice President, International Society for Tropical Foresters, (ISTF), lecturer with the Department of Forestry and Wildlife, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka and Founder of Sustainable Trans Environment International, a Non-Governmental Organization, gave deeper insight on this topic.
Excerpts
Question: What is biodiversity?
Ogbodo: Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems. Diverse forms of fauna and flora on Earth can be found within forest ecosystems, soil ecosystem, water ecosystem types such as marine and freshwater, grassland ecosystem, mountainous ecosystem and agro-ecosystem. Therefore, you can have biodiversity in a forest ecosystem where you see that natural forests have more diverse species of plants and animals than a man-made forest plantation. You can have agro biodiversity within an agricultural environment and marine bio-diversity hub in Coral reef at sea or ocean. There is also soil biodiversity which deals basically with micro-organisms present within a soil environment. That is why we don’t encourage the use of chemicals such as pesticides or fertilizers because it most times reduces soil biodiversity.
Question: So, of what essence is forest biodiversity for example, to human existence?
Ogbodo: Simply put, forest biodiversity is the mix of plant and animal species that can be found in a given location. For instance, a flourishing forest provides food, shelter, clean air and water to support various species. Forest biodiversity encompasses naturally diverse forms of life, and this diversity of plant species brings some benefits. These include pest and disease resistance, resilience to climate change and increased wildlife habitat.
Biodiversity is vital for healthy plants and animals. It means better food security and provides medicinal plants. Biodiversity keeps us healthy because of the amount of oxygen provided by forest trees while filtering carbon emissions from the atmosphere. It can also provide a solution to climate change even as it preserves our cultural ethics and aesthetics.
Question: So, what happens when there is biodiversity loss?
Ogbodo: Biodiversity loss is the decline or disappearance of biological diversity. So, less biodiversity means more zoonotic disease. Biodiversity loss does not just affect the land. Life in the oceans is being threatened by overfishing, habitat degradation, pollution, and acidification due to rising carbon dioxide levels in the sea water. Corals, for example, have undergone dramatic declines since the mid-1990s. Biodiversity has been declining at an alarming rate in recent years, mainly due to human activities, such as land use changes, pollution and climate change.
Question: Having established the fact that climate change and biodiversity affects each other, our readers will be interested to know if lost biodiversity be regained.
Ogbodo: The answer is yes. Ecosystem restoration campaign has been going on all over the world to regain degraded, depleted or completely lost ecosystem. So, if we have a forest that has suffered deforestation over the years, we can plant varieties of trees that are indigenous to that environment in that landscape and you nurture them and with time and they can be regained into producing varieties of species because as you have planted few of them, they will attract others. That is what forest conservation is all about and that is what national parks are also doing. We have reforestation project and even afforestation programmes which both contribute to regaining lost biodiversity. Also, places with gully erosion can be rehabilitated using some species like bamboo and they will be regained as soil gradually is coming up while those biodiversity and the other trees found there will be stabilizing the area and building up soil using the roots.
Question: Does regained biodiversity help in achieving carbon neutrality?
Ogbodo: When you talk about carbon neutrality, we should be thinking and narrowing it down to things like forest ecosystem and ocean. A lot of carbon dioxide is being dissolved into the ocean water. So, ocean is a hub for carbon sink as the coral reeve there helps to sequestrate carbon dioxide. Shile is a carbon sink same as forest. So, anything done to safeguard them will contribute to carbon neutrality. Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing is known as carbon sequestration and forest trees have the potential to sequestrate carbon dioxide the same way ocean and the soil do. So, foresters believe that promoting natural forest conservation, which enhances biodiversity conservation, is key to achieving carbon neutrality.
Question: How do you view the general attitude of Nigerians towards protecting the biodiversity?
Ogbodo: The attitude generally towards forest conservation is very poor. It is supposed to be everybody’s business. But in Nigeria, only the Federal Government is doing much on conserving our forests through the protection of the national parks. Most state governments are doing nothing in that direction. How many forest reserves do we have across states? Most of them have mainly melaena and tick species, which are exotic species. Even the millennia species you see there only regenerating through copism (nobody plants them but because you allow them, they regenerate on their own and grow). This is the situation in Anambra State, and I am sure most states share this reality. But, the current administration in Anambra State is doing massive tree planting across communities. It has partnered with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation and STI Foundation to reclaim some of the gully erosion sites using varieties of trees including bamboo. I recommend same to other states.
Question: Are there laws, treaties and conventions for biodiversity conservation?
Ogbodo: Yes. We have the convention on biodiversity, CBD, a United Nations framework meant to protect and biodiversity all over the world. In Nigeria, section 20 of 1999 constitution as amended stipulates that the state shall protect and conserve the forest, wildlife, the environment and land resources of Nigeria. That is a very good law. Item number 40 in the same constitution under the exclusive legislative list includes national parks and puts them under the control of the Federal Government. We have the Okomu National Park in Edo State, Old Oyo National Park, Cross River National Park, Kainji National Park and many others all established for biodiversity conservation.
We also have NESREA regulation 2009 which is aimed at conserving biodiversity. We also have leisure, riverbank and coastal land protection regulation 2019 also aimed at conserving biodiversity available within the aquatic environment. In that regulation, you have list of rivers. Also, any river mentioned in the NESREA regulation 2009 must have 200 metre buffer, meaning no other human activity is permitted on both sides of the riverbank except dense forests so that the forests will be able to protect. Unfortunately, buildings have been erected right at the bank of these rivers because of poor enforcement. We need to strengthen our enforcement capability.
Also, federal and state governments have been applying funds budgeted for the Forestry Departments which in partnership with specialized agencies are supposed to carry out enforcement and initiate policies that will help the conservation of the ecosystem.
Questions: So, what really are the gaps between the ideal and reality of today in Nigeria?
Ogbodo: The gaps include deforestation, lack of political will, paucity of funds to ministries, departments and agencies responsible for promoting conservation as well as lack of human resources or manpower to drive the conservation or enforcement of biodiversity. High rate of deforestation is due to government’s regulatory failure. I don’t know anywhere in Nigeria where you have concessional forestry (a place with high management standard where people are allowed to just go in to log). You give the people or company permit to do so. For example, NESREA regulation says if you fell a tree, you must plant five. How many of our state governments enforce this? From previous personal experience, contractors get approval from commissioners or other top government officials and go straight to the forests to start logging without passing through the specialized department of forestry for guidance. That department is supposed to tell them trees of merchantable sizes, the volume and numbers.
I also advocate increased funding of forestry activities both at the national and state levels. Adequate conservation of forest resources will safeguard our environment, mitigate climate change and then will reduce the impact of flooding in our society. Climate change is increasing because of increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere. And these carbon emissions warm the earth. The earth goes to melt the ice that is supposed to be the glacier that is supposed to be solid water in the ocean. And when the solid water in the ocean is melted, it increases the volume of the liquid water in the ocean which rises and goes to increase the sea level. The sea level rises and increases the estuary which in turn increases the fresh water, the rivers and the streams and if you have any of these around you, they all get flooded.
This is why we need to make sure that there are sufficient trees. We must also promote urban forestry. The other aspect is manpower. Every year, we turn out graduates who are supposed to help forestry and biodiversity conservation. But unfortunately, they don’t get employment. How do you promote conservation activities, policies and programmes without adequate manpower?
