NESREA, UNODC partner to combat illegal wildlife trafficking

National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) have partnered to curb wildlife trafficking by monitoring and enforcing legislation in the sub-region.

Its Director General, Prof. Aliyu Jauro, stated this while receiving equipment from UNODC in Abuja, saying that traffickers have adopted sophisticated methods. He said: “We, too, have to acquire modern technologies to trap them in their illegal trade in Nigeria.

Jauro explained that the provision of real-time equipment would greatly enhance wildlife monitoring, investigation, intelligence gathering, enforcement, evidence collection, data generation, data management and transmission.

He assured that the Nigerian government is taking necessary steps to rid the country of wildlife crimes, adding that the recent destruction of seized wildlife stockpiles was intended to discourage perpetrators of the crime and to send out the signal to them.

Similarly, Jauro maintained that the agency had put in place necessary checks at the border posts to frustrate activities of those who intend to use Nigeria as a transit hub for illegal shipment of controlled wildlife and their products to other countries.

NESREA’s DG, therefore, expressed appreciation to UNODC, adding that the gadgets would be deployed to the zonal and state field offices of the agency, particularly those that have been identified as hotspots for traffickers.