National Strategy to Combat Wildlife and Forest Crime in Nigeria 2022-2026.

This Nigerian National Strategy to Combat Wildlife and Forest Crime covers the period 2022-2026 and responds to the assumption that wildlife crime hinders sustainable development, and to the country’s need to protect and preserve its precious biodiversity, including wildlife, forest and fisheries resources from unsustainable human practices and major threats like habitat change, over-exploitation, pollution, invasive alien species, climate change, wildlife and forest products trafficking. In order to achieve its vision of a Nigeria free of wildlife crime, the Policy, in compliance with relevant Treaties and Conventions, like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), aims at taking necessary and targeted measures to combat and reduce wildlife crime, through: the protection, restoration and promotion of the sustainable use of Nigerian terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, the sustainably management of forests, the fight against desertification and land degradation.
The Strategy focuses its situation analysis on the following matters: species of trees, timber and its illegal logging; ivory and pangolin scales illegal trade; commercial over-utilisation of Nigeria’s forests for charcoal and regulation of fuelwood use; illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU) and related crimes in the fisheries sector; domestic illegal wildlife trade. Objectives and measures include interventions to tackle transnational and domestic marine, freshwater, terrestrial wildlife crime, through the enhancement of the institutional capabilities; the harmonisation of the legal framework for protecting wild flora and fauna; the increase of international cooperation; the empowerment of local communities with wildlife crime prevention initiatives and alternative livelihoods.