From Christiana Gokyo Jos
As Plateau State celebration Wildlife Day, the day is said to be celebrated to raise awareness of the World’s Wild fauna and Flora, and recognized the important role of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora on ensuring that International Trade does not threaten the survival of Species.
The day was set aside to be celebrated annually on the 3 March in support of animals and plants across the world, which was proposed by Thailand and was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly during its 68th meeting.
The General Assembly was said to reaffirmed the natural value of wildlife and it’s various contribution, cultural, recreational and aesthetic to sustainable development and human wellbeing.
The 2022 International Wildlife Day in Jos was celebrated with the theme: “Recovering Key Species For Ecosystem Restoration, Showcasing the Multiple Tourism Potential on the Plateau”, hosted by the Plateau State Tourism Corporation at the Jos Wildlife Park recently.
Speaking during the day the Conservator-General, National Park Service of Nigeria Dr. Ibrahim M. Goni observed that, the world population is estimated to be around 7 billion people, human beings all over the world rely on wildlife and biodiversity-based resources to meet all there needs from food, medicine and health to fuel housing and clothing.
He said, we have destroy, degraded and polluted earth’s natural habitats according to data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) red list of threatened Species 2018.
According to him, over 8,4000 Species of wild fauna and Flora are critically endangered while close to 30,000 more are understood to be endangered while some are vulnerable.
Dr.Goni explained that, based on these estimate, it is suggested that over a million Species are threatened with extinction the world over, adding that according to the report, about 513 species are at risk in Nigeria as endangered species.
Represented by Oladipo Ojo, disclosed that, the data quoted calls for serious concerns and urgent actions need to be taken to bring back some of the key Species that have gone into extinction or that are endangered critically endangered.
He said, the Conservation challenges in Nigeria are habitat destruction (fragmentation), Illegal Wildlife Trafficking (trade), Nigeria over the years has witnessed large scale seizures of pangolin scales being intercepted at the county’s border and at the aiAccording to him, today Pangolin which use to be seen freely and captured easily is difficult to sight, which is now critically endangered. Others challenges he stressed ere excessive exploitation, the greediness of Nigerians especially people living in the rural areas is a serious threat to the survival of Wildlife
