Just as the United Nations conference on climate change is underway in Porzan, Poland, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has earmarked $17 million (about N2 billion) for climate change and bio-diversity projects in Nigeria. This followed the admission of the country into the agency’s Small Grants Programme.

The deal is coming at a time the need to develop a framework for sustainable development by setting social equity goals and targets that aim at contributing to economic development while ensuring environmental sustainability.

A breakdown of the grant showed that $11.3 million (about N1.3 billion) was for climate change, while $5.7 million (about N667 million) was for projects in bio-diversity. Ongoing Global Environment Facility’s projects include the Critical Ecosystem Management under Fadama II and the Local Empowerment and Environmental Management Project (LEEMP). Other projects are Integrated Ecosystem Management (IEM) of trans-boundary areas between Niger Republic and Nigeria, the Niger-Basin project in Nigeria and the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem (GCLME). In the near future, there will be more GEF-funded projects in Nigeria," he said. He added that the implementation of the national environmental policy would also receive grants from GEF."

But according to the permanent secretary, Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Otaki Oyigbenu, GEF would continue to encourage the development of initiatives that would promote environmental protection, sustainable development and poverty alleviations.

He spoke at a workshop, which was one of the major components of GEF’s Outreach and Communication Strategy, was aimed at providing capacity building for recipient countries.

Daily Champion recalls that GEF, an independent financial organisation, provides grants to developing countries for environmental projects and for projects aimed at promoting sustainable livelihoods in rural communities, is the financial mechanism for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

However, GEF receives guidance from the conference of parties (or COP) on policy, strategy, programme priorities, and eligibility criteria related to the use of resources for purposes of the Convention.

Projects generally deal with one or more of four critical ecosystem types and the human communities found there: 1) arid and semi-arid zones; 2) coastal, marine, and freshwater resources; 3) forests; and 4) mountains. However, a wide spectrum of efforts to conserve and sustainably use earth’s biological diversity makes up nearly half of all GEF projects. Between 1991 and 2004, GEF allocated $1.89 billion in grants and mobilised an additional $3.80 billion in co-financing (from recipient countries, bilateral agencies, other development institutions, the private sector, and nongovernmental organisations) for biological diversity projects.

Since its launch in 1991, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has been helping countries build their capacity to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and reduce the loss of biodiversity globally. Moreover, the GEF promotes the development of an enabling environment for successful implementation of the CBD. These enabling activities assist countries in preparing the foundation for design and implementation of effective response measures to achieve the CBD’s objectives. Enabling activities also provide an important window through which biodiversity can be mainstreamed into national policies and programs. However, the need to create an environment in which local people and agencies can address biodiversity issues while developing economic activities that use resources in sustainable manner and cross-border resource management plans.

No doubt, experts say Nigeria is a nation with substantial and globally important biodiversity. Its large mammal communities have long been considered a heritage. More recently, studies have quantified the country’s great wealth of biotic resources and high proportion of endemic species within forest communities.

In view of this biological richness, stakeholders in the nation’s environment have decried federal government’s nonchalance to the all important issue of biodiversity management. They condemned the insignificant proportions of land areas allocated as national parks and other types of protected areas.

They said the country is losing large amounts of biodiversity due to population pressures and associated exploitation of natural resources.

Land-use pressures have led to considerable antagonism against conservation, which is exacerbated by the low priority governments across the country have in the past given to ensuring conservation policies also support local communities.

Loss in biodiversity, however, results in reduction of resources that are essential to future economic development. Continued loss of biodiversity forecloses opportunities for present and future benefits from biodiversity, many as yet unrecognised. Debate on environment and development has suffered from low citizen awareness of environmental issues. In addition, little information exists on how much biodiversity use is sustainable in the long-term in Nigeria.

But as many biological resources lie or move across boundaries, users of biodiversity also cross these borders, lending merit to examining biodiversity issues on a regional basis.

Multi-level financing, according to observers is a better way out. This will involve community based groups hence biodiversity resources are found and used most by local communities in rural areas. These communities are governed by decentralised government bodies at the village and district levels to the overall management of biodiversity. Biodiversity issues need, therefore, to be addressed at national, regional, and local levels.

To date, GEF has invested a total of $92.4 million and leveraged nearly $22 million in co-financing to developing countries and countries in transition for 290 enabling activities. The GEF helps eligible countries to develop National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, carry out self-assessments of capacity-building needs, report to the CBD, and participate in the Clearing-House of the CBD.

However, as the GEF looks toward the future, enabling activities will continue to be an important part of its support.

Analysts in global environmental issues say creating an enabling political, social, and institutional environment is essential for countries and the GEF to achieve success in biodiversity conservation initiatives.

According to Mr. Eugene Opara, a lecturer of the Department of Estate Management, University of Lagos, one of the best ways of managing the nation’s biodiversity is to involve host communities to in the course of managing the environment. "The environment is capable of being impacted upon and thus there is the urgent need for rehabilitation and empowerment through capacity building. Similarly, community projects and other development activities being embarked upon by oil companies in their host communities should not be seen as gift to the community but should be planned, discussed by the developer and the host community, and made participatory rather than donated."

This was contained in a paper he presented entitled "Strategic issues in the resolution of crisis in the Nigerian upstream oil sector through an analysis of the conflicts of interest and claims" at a three-day international conference on environmental economics and conflict resolution organised by the Department of Estate Management, University of Lagos.

Experts also argue that biodiversity and habitat loss occur as a result of noise during line cuttings in seismic surveys, while development of large hectares of land for drilling crews results in more noise, biodiversity and habitat loss.

He said that the only way forward for the crisis ridden Niger Delta region of the country is an urgent rehabilitation and empowerment of the host communities through capacity building.

"Oil exploration and production activities have direct impact on both the physical environment as well as on the socio-economic lives of the people. Until recently, inhabitants of the oil producing Niger Delta area have been neglected in the area of environmental assessment and evaluation," Opara noted.

He added that a lot of emphases were placed on the impact on the physical environment while the socio-economic impact of oil operations on the people was neglected. "For the original inhabitants of the oil- producing areas of the Niger Delta, oil has been a colossal disaster.