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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Monday, July 05, 2004.
NCF launches Buru initiative in Nigeria
By Dada Jackson
Senior Property & Environment Correspondent, Lagos
The Nigerian Conservation
Foundation (NCF), a non-governmental organisation set up in 1980 by a
group led by the late Chief Shafi Edu, has concluded its project in Buru,
in Kumi Local Government area of Taraba State. The project, named,
“Participatory Sustainable Management of Renewable Natural Resources,”
which started four years ago, was a direct response to the plight of the
people of the community.
In a presentation to property and
environment witness, at its headquarters in Lekki, the Executive Director
of the foundation, Professor, Emmanuel Obot, said the project was a
result of a long process of site selection that started with the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Important Bird Area (IBA)
project.
According to Obot, ‘‘the IBA project,
unimplemented jointly with the NCF, recognized 52 IBAS and biodiversity
hot spots” in Nigeria, adding that through a series of consultations and
participatory appraisals, the site at Buru was chosen for the
implementation of a biodiversity conservation project.
The executive director pointed out that
NCFs participatory sustainable management of Renewable Natural Resources,
was a practical attempt to involve local people in resource conservation
as an alternative to “top down approaches.”
He noted that the livelihood of the
poorest in Nigeria depended on wild resources, adding that historically,
NCF worked with government agencies such as the national parks service to
manage protected areas (PA).
Obot said that due to government policy,
‘‘these protected areas usually restricted or completely excluded access
to and use of resources by local communities.’’ He stressed that lesson
from this history showed that ‘‘this approach to resource conservation always
heightened conflict over resource use.’’
According to him, the objectives of the
project included, improving the livelihood of the poorest sectors of the
Nigerian economy, who depend on renewable natural resources, improving
the management of such renewable natural resources, towards
sustainability on key biodiversity sites and so, maintain their
biodiversity.
He said that another objective was the
need to improve Nigerian NGO capacity to manage and fundraise to sustain
such projects and to disseminate the lessons learned from the project, to
benefit other key sites and their local communities.
He pointed out that Buru, which is located
at the base of the Mambila Plateau, a few kilometers from the boundary
with Cameroon, has an access road which during the rainy season, is
usually difficult to pass.
According to him, the community is made up
of six ethnic groups, Tigun, Ndoro, Kaka, Mambila, Fulani and Ibo, with a
population as at December, 1999, of about 426 people; 218 male and 208
female.
Obot said that when he and his team
arrived Buru, they met a people suspicious that “we may take the land and
convert it to a national property,” but a people organised into interest
groups and forest resources user group with a traditional council strong
and well respected.
He further said, that the aim of the NCF
was to establish a renewable natural resources management system that
placed value on the resources, manages it sustainably and so protects
birds and other life forms.
Obot noted that the team was able to
conserve biodiversity due to what he said was an attitudinal change. He
added the Buru was a major root for illegal trade in chimpanzees but with
the presence of the project, the Buru people neither capture chimpanzees
nor allowed the village to be used as a transit.
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