Ekiti State Government in collaboration with the Triple Green Environmental Development (TGED) foundation and Oxford University has launched a survey project towards the study and documentation of the biodiversity across the state.
The government, through the State Forestry Commission and the partners, said the study which would involve the communities and the citizens was aimed at preserving the existing biodiversity towards protecting the richness of the earth’s ecosystem and enhancing socio-economic development of the state.
Speaking during the launch of the project in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital which was attended by stakeholders, the Founder and Chief Executive officer of TGED foundation, Oluwaseyi Ebenezer explained that the project would help to identify the animals, trees, and other biodiversity towards preserving them for the future.
She noted that the survey project would involve the stakeholders especially the people in the communities, adding that, “acknowledging their existence and understanding their roles can be useful in the global efforts to protect biodiversity.”
According to her, “The project is sponsored by the University of Oxford and we believe that many of our biodiversity are going into extinction and most of our people in the communities can’t even identify or name them whenever they see them, that is the core of the project.
“We will collect data on biodiversity that we have in existence and also work with the communities for them to identify them and also to know the importance to the society. It is a bit of a citizen’s science engagement and research project.
“Internationally, we are losing our biodiversity and when we talk about climate change, one of the causes is the loss in our biodiversity and we can’t preserve them if we don’t understand the biodiversity we still have left.
“So, what we are doing in Ekiti is to identify the biodiversity we still have left in our forest and that we now help us to preserve our biodiversity and protect against climate change.
“We are working with the department of Geography in Oxford University and whatever data we are collecting , it will help in the research we are doing in the universities in the state and the country in combating climate change in future.”
The Technical Adviser to the state governor and chairman, Oversight board for the project, Dr Akinyemi Akinyugha lamented that global biodiversity is under serious threat, hence the need for the survey in the interest of the environment.
He said, “The purpose of the project is to identify those animals and the rest, document them for the world to see what we still have in Ekiti state. We want to develop conservation strategies to conserve what we still have in the state.
“Once we have an idea of what we have in the state, it will drive eco-tourism and the socio and environmental benefits will be conserved. I can say with the right management strategy, we can propagate and give them an environment where they can thrive and grow better.”
On his part, representative of Oxford University and technical adviser to Ekiti government on forest management and climate change, Dr Oliver Owen said the project was aimed at exposing the state to the world through biodiversity.
“Some of these things are not easy to find or have gone into extinction and we want to really understand what we have to manage them properly.
“Oxford is collaborating with the government and the NGO to pilot a new way of thinking, or doing research and for the world to know what is available in the state,” Owen said.
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