Poor management of Nigeria's environment costs $5 billion per year
Copyright 2001 Reuters
September 19, 2001
ABUJA - Poor management of Nigeria's environment is costing Africa's most populous country around $5 billion a year in ruined land and lost forests, an ecology expert said yesterday.
Muhtari Aminu-Kano, executive director of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), told a meeting on the country's environment in the capital Abuja that much of the damage resulted from oil and gas extraction in the Niger Delta region.
"We are losing more than $5 billion in Nigeria annually based on the way we manage our environment," he said, blaming "poor agricultural practices, oil exploration, oil spills, grazing and habitat destruction".
Complaints over environmental management have contributed to years of tension and violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.
Studies conducted by the World Bank showed that $3 billion of the losses arose from land degradation while deforestation was costing $2 billion a year, Aminu-Kano said.
Illegal logging was speeding deforestation and the southwards advance of the Sahara desert, which threatened to destroy rare plant and animal species in northern parts of the country, he added.