The Ekiti State Government has partnered with an environmental nongovernmental organisation, the Triple Green Environmental Development Foundation (TGED), and the United Kingdom-based Oxford University to collect data on Biodiversity in the state.
Speaking at the launch of the Biodiversity survey project which is sponsored by Oxford University, in Ado Ekiti, the Chief Executive Officer of TGED, Oluwaseyi Ebenezer, said that much of the biodiversity is going into extinction and most people in the communities can’t even identify or name them whenever they see them.
She said “When we talk about biodiversity, it involves animals in the forest, trees, ants, birds and all those things that make up our environment. It must be said that most times they don’t even know the importance of these biodiversity to the environment but they know them.
“We will collect data on biodiversity that we still have in existence and also work with the communities for them to identify them and also to know the importance of biodiversity to the society. It is a bit of citizens’ science engagement and research project.
“Internationally, we are losing our biodiversity and when we talk about climate change, one of the causes is the loss in our biodiversity and we can’t preserve them if we don’t understand the biodiversity we still have left.
“So, what we are doing in Ekiti is to identify the biodiversity we still have left in our forest and that we now help us to preserve our biodiversity and protect against climate change.
“We are working with the Department of Geography at Oxford University and whatever data we are collecting, it will help in research we are doing in the universities in the state and the country in combating climate change in future.”
Also speaking at the event, the Technical Adviser to the governor and chairman oversight board for the project, Dr Akinyemi Akinyugha, said that biodiversity across the world is threatened due to the unsustainable harvesting of animals, saying, “but we still have things in the wild like trees and the rest which are very critical.
“So, this project will document what we will still have because we believe it is not bad news, there is some good news in the wild. The purpose of the project is to identify those animals and the rest and document them for the world to see what we still have in Ekiti state. We want to develop conservation strategies to conserve what we still have in the state.
“Once we have an idea of what we have in the state, it will drive eco-tourism and the socio and environmental benefits will be conserved. I can say with the right management strategy, we can propagate and give them an environment where they can thrive and grow better.”
In his own submission, a representative of Oxford University and technical adviser to Ekiti government forest management and climate change, Dr Oliver Owen said Biodiversity is what gives nature its worth richness.
