Stakeholders Team up to Save, Harness Mangroves for Improved Livelihood
By Ene Okwanihe, Abuja
The UK PACT in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and other relevant stakeholders have launched the Integrated Management of Mangrove ecosystem and expansion of social protection for Fisheries and forest depends of coastal communities of Cross River state in Southern Nigeria.
The objective of the project is to enhance national and Cross River State capacities in mangrove rehabilitation, conservation, utilization and management, raise awareness on the role of mangroves for a sustainable ecosystem, build capacities of government agencies on the use of technologies for ecosystem restoration and expand social protection for mangrove and fisheries-dependent communities through synergies and coherence between forestry and social protection.
Speaking at the launch event in Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital, the Head of Climate change and energy at the UK embassy in Nigeria, Miss Martine Sobey said the project is all about protecting the Mangrove from pollution, over harvesting and other practices that damages the mangrove while ensuring that the communities that depend on the mangrove are catered for.
“ The key is integrate, mangroves in Nigeria provides critical habitats and biodiversity but they also provide important livelihood for forest dependant communities, so for us it’s about protecting the loss of mangroves from pollution, over harvesting for few woods and helping communities who depend on those mangrove for fish, for their livelihoods and finding a sustainable way for communities to live and protect mangrove in the long term”.
Miss Sobey said she hopes that stakeholders particularly the government gets to understand the level of work the UK PACT is doing in Cross River state, how its helping the people and think of how the project can be replicated in other parts of the country.
FAO
The FAO representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS Mr. Koffy Kouacou said the project is bringing stakeholders together to save the mangrove in Cross River state.
According to him, the mangrove in Cross River state is going through a lot of degradation and stakeholders need to work together to restore it and also create alternative source of livelihood for the people in the affected communities.
“Let’s save the Mangrove in Nigeria, Let’s save the Mangrove in Cross River, as you know, today we have a lot of degradation of the Mangrove in the Cross River area, so together jointly with our parts we want to see how we can better manage it, bring alternative livelihood to the women, how we can better strengthen the capacity of the government in terms of restoration of the mangrove, that’s the challenges that all of us need to work together to achieve a very good result”.
Mr. Kouacou noted that it’s a known fact that their are a lot of livelihood activities around the Mangrove that supports the women and the economy of the people but there was need to need balance the ecosystem such that the women have alternative source of livelihood while also saving and restoring the Mangrove.
NATIONAL COUNCIL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
On his part, the Director General of the National Council on Climate Change Dr. Salisu Dahiru said the UK PACT project is in line with Government’s plans to contributes to Climate adaptation.
“Integrated Management of mangrove ecosystem and Expansion of social protection for fisheries and forest dependents in The coastal communities of Cross Rivers State, Nigeria” aligns with One of the major Mitigation option of the updated Nigeria’s NDC and also sustainable development goals, contributes to climate adaptation And fosters community well beings.
This furthers institutional Strengthening in deepening research, adaptive management practices and collaboration among stakeholders.
