Federal government to list four parks in IUCN conservation scheme

Four national parks are to be listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas (GLPCA).The programme improves the contribution that equitably governed and effectively managed protected areas make to sustainable development through the conservation of nature and provision of associated social, economic, cultural, and spiritual values.

The parks for the pilot protected areas are located at Old Oyo, Cross River, Kainji Lake and Ghashaka Gumti. There are two conservation areas in Cross River State.
Conservator General of National Parks Service (NPK) Ibrahim Goni who stated this at stakeholders’ forum in Abuja, assured that the Secretariat of Green List in Africa would be domicile in Nigeria.

He said that the GLPCA is designed to assist national governments and partners in conservation to meet the commitments embodied in CBD Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and particularly Target 11.

On her part, African Coordinator of Green list, Beatrice Chataigner stated that the forum organised by IUCN was meant to prepare and provide stakeholders with understanding of the whole green list processes.

According to her, the IUCN Green List standard has been developed as first and foremost as the basis of a certification process.She noted that there is a strong interest also in using it as framework to support learning and adaptive management, and for monitoring change over time.

Explaining further, she said the forum would highlight the requirements of green list and this is targeted at effective and equitable management of protected areas.
“This is not only to measure the protected areas (PAs) performance against the GL standards, but also to diagnose the causes of challenges in order to set up appropriate solutions that would enable the PA to finally meeting the IUCN.” She maintained that IUCN green list of protected areas is an initiative that would measure its success in reaching good standards of management.