By Ochiaka Ugwu
President of the Association of Environmental Impact Assessment of Nigeria (AEIAN), Dr Ahmad Sanda has appealed to Federal Government for urgent action to restore damaged ecosystems, adding that only with healthy ecosystems can we enhance people’s livelihoods, counteract climate change, and stop the collapse of biodiversity.
Sanda who made this known while speaking at the virtual and physical conference during the World Environment Day 2021 emphasized that ecosystems restoration is a global undertaking at massive scale which means repairing millions of hectares of land so that people can have access to food, clean water and jobs.
”It means bringing back plants and animals from the brink of extinction, from the peaks of mountains to the depths of the sea,” he said.
Dr. Ahmad appealed that there are many small actions everyone can take, every day: growing trees, greening our cities, rewinding our gardens or cleaning up trash alongside rivers and coasts as recommended by WED.
AEIAN President advised that government should frontally tackle environmental problems in the country in order to restore our ecosystems.
Also speaking at the virtual and physical conference which took place in Abuja Prof. Ani Nkang said that the environmental challenges before Nigeria was due to both legal and institutional failures.
Prof. Ani Nkang, VC Arthur Jarvis University, Calabar, who delivered a keynote lecture during the virtual conference on the WEDs theme Ecosystem Restoration, said hope was not lost to restore our ecosystems if governments at all levels decided to take up the gauntlet to curb those things that inhibit our efforts towards environmental development.
The virtual and physical conference which took place in Abuja was moderated by former ace broadcaster with NTA, Muhammad Kudu Abubakar.
The body seized the opportunity of WED to celebrate its General Secretary Dr Ijeoma Vincent-Akpu with the cutting of the cake for her the 50th Birthday which incidentally fell on the same day with WED.
