Wild Life and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit:FG Commits to Checking Wildlife Crime _Comfort Nkong

The federal government says it will operationalize the wildlife and forest crime analytic toolkit as a means of combatting crimes like illegal trade in wildlife and commercial poaching.

The Minister of environment Mohammed Abdullahi made the declaration during the official presentation of the wildlife and forest crime analytic toolkit in Abuja.

The Minister, represented by Malam Stanley Jonah said the toolkit would help to upscale the fight against wildlife and forest crime.

According to him,”the toolkit actually represents the complete tool we need to drive and achieve our mission,vision and goals as well as global due for nature”.

He further said without a doubt it would assist upscale efforts to improve the criminal justice system.

Over 1000 species are facing extinction thanks to human activity. In a bid to reverse this trend and combat climate change, stakeholders converged in Abuja to deliberate on the adoption of the wildlife and forest crime analytic toolkit in Nigeria.

The United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs country rep Mr Oliver Stolpes who spoke on the relevance of the toolkit said it is important for the source and destination countries to cooperate.

According to him, “the legal framework continues to evidence gaps ,in particular as concerns the penalties foreseen by the law and recent ones suggest that investigators, prosecutors and judges appear to require further capacities and resources to mount an effective and credible criminal justice system “.

He lamented the fact that presently wildlife and forest crime are perceived as a ” low risk high reward criminal market”.

Other Stakeholders including the Head Climate change of the EU delegation sponsors of the toolkit,Dr Sabri Macawi spoke on the need to collaborate and the importance of the toolkit.

According to Dr Sabri, “the options would help legislators in Nigeria to select the right options , to select what is best for the country so the next step would be to compare the needs with what is proposed in these series of options “.