‘Weak Biodiversity Laws Enforcement Deprives Africans Of Huge Benefits’

Poor enforcement of strong biodiversity laws and policies amongst other factors have continuously deprived Africans of several benefits.

Dr. Mohammed Mahmood Abubakar, the Honourable Minister of the Environment made this assertion while speaking at the first ECOWAS Regional Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) consultation on Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, organized by the Federal Government of Nigeria and ECOWAS CEDEAO, TheConscience reports. 

At the Online event which held recently on webinar, Dr Abubakar said, “The livelihood of West Africans is being threatened daily due to unsustainable practices, strong biodiversity policy and laws but weak enforcement, lack of environmental awareness, weak political will for sustaining biodiversity conservation gains, uncoordinated sub-regional effort, among others.”

The Minister said that the African continent is experiencing catastrophic biodiversity loss resulting from human-induced threats arising from unsustainable management practices. One of the African sub-region mostly impacted by this biodiversity loss is West Africa, having witnessed substantial economic loss because of this.

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“These losses are becoming irreversible with the rate at which biodiversity is being decimated, habitat converted or degraded, deforestations across the sub-region is among the highest in the world, increased uncontrolled farmland expansion, illegal wildlife trade, etc., he added.

“As a government, we will continue to support and encourage other ECOWAS Member States to develop appropriate mechanisms to strengthen enforcement of biodiversity laws and mobilize means of implementation towards the developed biodiversity action plans.

In addition to this, we will also provide the required support to ensure continuous coordination of this sub-regional consultations on biodiversity while promoting strong regional collaboration among parties towards achieving the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework,” he added.

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The priorities for the consultation was centered on Biodiversity and biodiversity laws in the African continent with the hope of mobilizing regional effort to deliver biodiversity protection and resource mobilization towards achieving the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

The Regional Consultation with the theme “Strengthening the African Position Ahead of the Open Ended Working Group-3 (OEGW-3) Meeting” was declared opened by Dr. Mohammed Mahmood Abubakar.