The federal government has revealed plans to domesticate a variety of animal species that are attractive to hunters, to discourage bush burning in Nigeria.
Dropping the hint in Abuja, the nation’s capital, director of forestry department, Mr Salisu Dahiru, disclosed that the move became necessary to curb the frequent bush burning by hunters which deplete and degrade the environment.
He said that the idea was part of the country’s 2013 guidelines on Community-Based Forest Management, designed to ensure proper preservation of the forests.
“Today, we know that you can domesticate a large number of animal species that provide protein that are attractive to hunters both individually and collectively,” Dahiru said.
According to him, people with very small capital can form small cooperatives or small community holdings to enable them key into the anticipated project.
He said that the policy provided for additional capacity building, to create further awareness and mobilise communities to be able to organise themselves toward better understanding of the dynamics of forests.
The forest expert said enlighten them on how to do participatory enforcement of regulations toward safeguarding and managing the forest will facilitate the objective of the initiative “Some of the key success factors of this Community-Based Forest Management is adopting a participatory approach and providing alternative livelihood.”
The director stated that people needed to understand the demerits associated with use of bush burning for hunting.
“The benefits you are getting from bush meat is very small compared to the damage these fires are doing to the environment by promoting deforestation and desert encroachment,” he informed.
Dahiru said that the continuous depletion of the forests had made hunters to cover longer distances for hunting.
He recalled that in the past, hunters don’t have to go too far away to hunt and get these bush meats. However, today some hunters who went to hunt in the south eastern states were arrested because they were seen with den guns and assumed to terrorists.
“You can see people now leave their areas to go and hunt for meat in other places because they have finished what they need to hunt in their place. So we need to look inwards and bring about innovative strategy that will address this issue,” Dahiru charged.
