Poor management of Nigeria's environment costs $5 billion per year
Date: 19-Sep-01
Country: NIGERIA
Muhtari Aminu-Kano, executive director of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), told a meeting on the country's environment in the capital Abuja that much of the damage resulted from oil and gas extraction in the Niger Delta region.
"We are losing more than $5 billion in Nigeria annually based on the way we manage our environment," he said, blaming "poor agricultural practices, oil exploration, oil spills, grazing and habitat destruction".
Complaints over environmental management have contributed to years of tension and violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.
Studies conducted by the World Bank showed that $3 billion of the losses arose from land degradation while deforestation was costing $2 billion a year, Aminu-Kano said.
Illegal logging was speeding deforestation and the southwards advance of the Sahara desert, which threatened to destroy rare plant and animal species in northern parts of the country, he added.
