2021 Mangrove Day: CEHRD calls for urgent legislation and policy to protect mangroves in Nigeria

As the World Mangrove Day is marked today (26^th July 2021), the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) insists ‘mangroves are the last lines of defense of coastal communities in the Niger Delta against erosion, flooding and food insecurity, and need urgent legislative and policy attention. The mangrove ecosystem constitutes a critical support for humanity given the myriad of goods and services the ecosystem provides. Globally, mangroves help in conserving biological diversity, which include several endangered mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. Mangroves serve as spawning grounds for many animal species including commercially important fish species that are critical to coastal livelihoods. They also serve as the most efficient nature-based solution to enhance climate adaptation and mitigation, food security, and human well-being. Mangroves sequester carbon, a major cause of climate change, four times greater than tropical rainforest.

The Niger Delta region in Nigeria is Africa’s largest delta and has the fourth largest mangrove forests in the world. Nigeria’s mangrove, is the largest in Africa covering 10,515km². It has been estimated that, at least, 60% of commercial fishes in the Gulf of Guinea breed in the mangroves of the Niger Delta. This implies that the Niger Delta region has a strategic role to conserve and protect mangroves for local, regional and global benefits. However, there are indications that awareness of the benefits of ecosystem goods and services is minimal resulting in unsustainable acts and behaviours that degrade the mangrove ecosystem. Threats to the region’s mangroves include overharvesting for fuel wood, oil and plastics pollution, dredging, reclamation for different residential and industrial development, nypa palm invasion, fragmentation for pipeline and electric powerline right-of-way. It is reported that 27% of the global oil impact on mangroves occur in the Niger Delta. These practices have local and global impacts on climate change resilience.  Therefore, there is an alarming need to galvanize relevant stakeholders to create awareness and initiate actions for the sustainable conservation and restoration of the mangrove system in the Niger Delta. While appreciable efforts had been geared toward sustainable management (conservation and restoration) in some countries, such efforts are infancy in Nigeria. For example, Malaysia with 6,412 km² and Vietnam with only 1,100 km² of mangroves have 40 and 22 mangrove protected areas (MPAs), respectively. Unfortunately, Nigeria with 10,515km² mangroves has no MPA!

Nationally, CEHRD has demonstrated leadership in raising awareness on the role of mangroves, having consistently led two-decade of advocacy for mangrove conservation and implemented mangrove restoration initiatives. For example, CEHRD pioneered community-led mangrove restoration in Nigeria in 2004, and has recently developed a contextual user-friendly manual for mangrove planting and management, established and built capacity of Environment Clubs in five secondary schools in Rivers and Bayelsa States to drive mangrove restoration. The Environment Club is an initiative to engender a paradigm shift from mangrove ecosystem destruction to that of nurture and regeneration to foster ecosystem sustainability and a healthy human-mangrove relationship. CEHRD uses the Environment Club platform to raise awareness, sensitize the public and teach the rudiments of mangrove management. The Club Members have used acquired knowledge to establish mangrove nurseries in Bodo and Mogho communities to support the ongoing mangrove restoration in the Bodo Creek and the would-be wider Ogoni area in Rivers State.  While these efforts are solitary, critical but meagre, combined efforts from various stakeholders could help the Niger Delta to contribute effectively to mangrove conservation and restoration. CEHRD therefore recommends the following key actions:

• Local communalities to develop cultural norms towards mangrove conservation and restoration
• Immediate remediation and restoration of degraded mangrove areas in the Niger Delta.
• Robust policy to end artisanal oil refining (kpofire) in the Niger Delta and optimize contingency response to protecting mangroves in the event of operational oil spills.
• The Federal, State, Local Governments and communities should establish mangrove protected areas and community mangrove conservation areas.
• Create law and policies that will mainstream sustainable mangrove management in Nigeria
• The local government councils to work with community leaders to develop bye-laws to protect mangroves
• The federal and state government and local communities to develop a mangrove co-management model for effective conservation
• Encourage the establishment of Environment clubs in all coastal schools in the Niger Delta.
• Develop a blueprint for the education and sensitization of coastal communities on the benefits of the mangrove ecosystem
• Assign substantial resources towards mangrove research, education and sustainable management.

Kabari Sam (PhD)

Head, Environment and Conservation

Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD)

About the world mangrove conservation day

This year’s International Day of the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem commonly called World Mangrove Day presents an opportunity to reflect on our responsibility to conserve and protect mangroves for improved ecosystem goods and services. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2015, declared July 26, as the Mangrove Day specifically to raise awareness of the importance of mangrove ecosystem and the activities that continue to threaten the existence of, and goods and services derivable from the mangrove ecosystem. Efforts are taken globally to galvanize stakeholders to address mangrove degradation. The need to increase a comprehensive global approach to large-scale mangrove conservation, restoration, and sustainable use, has therefore necessitated the coming together of a number of organizations including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and Wetlands International to form the Global Mangrove Alliance (GMA), which is saddled with the responsibility of bringing together NGOs, governments, industry, local communities and funders to not only stop mangrove degradation, but also to increase mangrove cover by 20% by 2030. The 2021 Mangrove Day is remarkable as it marks the beginning of the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration. Prioritizing mangrove ecosystem conservation will significantly contribute to the Decades mission.