By ZAKAA LAZARUS
At first glance, it is just a number: 300 hectares. But in Nigeria’s fragile ecological landscape, that daily loss of forest reserve is more than a statistic it is a steady march toward desertification, flooding, food insecurity and a future more vulnerable to climate change.
This was the stark warning issued in Abuja by the Conservator-General of the National Park Service (NPS), Ibrahim Goni, when he hosted members of the Environment Media Correspondents Association of Nigeria (EMCAN).
For Goni, who oversees Nigeria’s seven national parks and their buffer zones, the crisis is no longer distant. Illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, illegal mining and insecurity are converging to hollow out the country’s last protected wildernesses.
The scale of the threat is perhaps best illustrated in Gashaka-Gumti National Park Nigeria’s largest park, sprawling across Taraba and Adamawa states.
There, a joint operation by the NPS and the Nigerian Army recently shut down two major illegal mining sites, closing extensive mining pits and flushing out more than 4,000 illegal miners.
It was a victory, but a fragile one.
“Security operations alone will not eliminate illegal mining,” Goni admitted. For communities around the parks with no alternative livelihoods, the forest remains their mine, farm and marketplace.
That reality is playing out beyond Gashaka-Gumti. In Oyo State, the Service is collaborating with the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development to contain illegal mining activities. In Rivers State, at least 17 miners have been arrested in ongoing enforcement operations.
Goni explained the vicious cycle: criminals dislodged from a national park simply relocate to the surrounding forests, regroup, and return undermining every gain made by security operatives.
He therefore called for sustained inter-agency cooperation, while commending the Armed Forces for their role in securing vulnerable ecosystems.
Beyond the trees, another illicit economy is thriving.
According to the Conservator-General, Nigeria has become a transit corridor for international wildlife trafficking networks. Wildlife products from live animals to carcasses are smuggled from neighbouring countries such as Chad, Niger and Cameroon, then moved through Nigeria’s seaports to overseas markets.
To confront this, the Nigeria Customs Service, NPS, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and the Nigeria Police Force have set up an inter-agency committee. The committee, he said, has already carried out raids leading to seizures of live animals and other specimens.
He also appealed to journalists to help raise public awareness on broader ecological threats pollution, flooding and erosion noting that the Federal Ministry of Environment has deployed flood-warning equipment in several flood-prone communities.
For all the threats, one challenge remains quieter but equally damaging: poor coverage.
The Chairman of EMCAN, Joycelyn Ellakeche Adah, noted that although the association has over 35 members, only three or four media organisations consistently cover the National Park Service.
The result, she said, is limited public understanding of what the parks do, why they matter, and what is at stake if they are lost.
That disconnect was evident in a separate courtesy visit by traditional rulers from Oba Hill in Osun State. Led by the Secretary of the Oba Hill Traditional Council, Mr. Shedrack Adebayo Adelakun, the rulers pleaded not just to be heard, but to be included.
Their demands were clear: 70 per cnt of employment opportunities for host communities, priority for physical development, transparent demarcation of park boundaries, and even budgetary provision for traditional institutions.
“We will love that the government demarcates the real boundaries of the park and also indicate where possible the limit of internal boundaries because some miners are showing interest in mining around Akinleve town,” the rulers said.
It is a reminder that conservation in Nigeria is not just about protecting trees and wildlife it is about negotiating survival, livelihood and coexistence.
And with 300 hectares disappearing every day, the negotiation is running out of time.
