Environmental conservation stakeholders have inaugurated the Agro-Biodiversity Conservation (ABC) project to reduce the effects of climate change on the ecosystem, adding that everyone has a stake.
They stated this in Ibadan on Wednesday at an event commemorating 2022 GIS Day, themed “Biodiversity Conservation.”
Dr Dotun Afolayan, the President of the Nigeria Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology (NSCB) and an Assistant Director of Research at the National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB), said everyone should be responsible for protecting the nation’s biological resources.
“We didn’t do anything to have the resources, but the world is counting on us to ensure that these resources are not removed, wiped off or go into extinction.
“If we don’t do our bit of replanting trees, protecting against overexploitation usage of resources, conserving in a gene bank, conserving using technological tools.
If you are not a manager, you will be a ‘degrader’ not doing anything, being nonchalant is doing something to the environment; because you are promoting things that are degrading the environment by doing nothing,” she said.
Also, the Chief Executive Officer, GIS Consult, Ibadan, Mr David Afolayan said GIS Day 2022, has the theme ‘Biodiversity Conservation’ because plant and animal species were becoming extinct every year.
He said that the use of the Geographic Information System (GIS) has made it possible to map, monitor, model, and conserve biodiversity for present and future generations.
The GIS expert said one of the recurring themes at COP 27 was several promises but minimal results.
He lamented that the little progress made on reversing the effect of climate change has been wound back because of some realities that countries are facing due to the Russia-Ukraine war, which has disrupted the availability of fuel and the food supply chain, among other things.
The Russia and Ukraine war has changed the perception of people about the climate goal they set. Presidents and leaders have come to a sad reality; should we keep a promise that we don’t even know whether we are achieving or face the reality that we have to stay alive today?
“European countries are at risk because they are facing winter and power is needed to warm up their homes and now there is fuel challenge, power, and gas distribution,” Afolayan said.
While inaugurating the Agro-Biodiversity Conservation (ABC) project, he said that through partnerships, the project would ensure that schools plant gardens, where endangered plants would be planted by students who would monitor the growth and challenged fertility of the soil, see the plants, and intervene to make them come back.
And in that process, the students would learn the hard truth that there is something that everyone can do and that they must monitor it to see it grow. They will plant the gardens, capture information about biodiversity and nurture a garden of endangered plants which would be a learning process which they can replicate in their home.
“The project is on the Geography Green School project, which is all about sustainable development, understanding how the earth operates and what needs to be done,” he said.
One of the participants, Ifeoluwa Ajayi-Obe, a student of the American Christian Academy said the event was an eye-opener and promised to conserve the natural world.
