The Lagos Free Zone Company (LFZC) has sealed pact with Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), Nigeria’s foremost conservationist, to conserve and protect the country’s aquatic ecosystem from the impact of human activities.
The partnership, according to a statement obtained by BusinessDay in Lagos, is specifically to protect the sea turtles around LFZC’s operational area in Lagos State.
LFZC is a free trade zone developer and management company responsible for the Lagos Free Zone. It has an operational area measuring over 800 hectares with nine designated industrial zones.
The company is determined to support the ecosystem to mitigate the impact of human activities and this, according to the statement, is part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Lagos State.
LFZC is located at Ibeju Lekki in Lagos State. Parts of its environs, particularly the shoreline adjoining the sea, have been identified as important sites for sea turtles most of which are endangered.
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The project is aimed at educating and raising awareness both within and beyond the surrounding communities. Sea turtles are threatened due to being susceptible as by-catch by fishermen. They also nest on the sea shore.
Their seashore habitat exposes them and makes their eggs vulnerable as they are often harvested by locals and consumed as food. This accumulated vulnerability is part of the reasons for its global decline, thus the need to protect and conserve them.
NCF explains that its collaboration with LFZC is part of its Strategic Action Pillar 2021-2025, Pillar 2 – Saving Species in Peril. It adds that the objectives of this pillar are to protect and recover indigenously imperiled and other significant species in all ecosystem types and critical habitats of Nigeria.
Others are to expand options for rural outreach strategies, livelihood schemes and grassroot coordination in support of in-situ wildlife conservation across support zone communities of critical habitats and to provide information consistent with facts, trends and predictors of wildlife dynamics as guidelines for policies, recovery plans, decision-making and other sustainable investments in biodiversity management.
The objectives also include fostering interagency collaborations and partnership for the commemoration of relevant conservation anniversaries, administration of legal instruments, environmental legislation and conservation education.
“Sea turtle is among species NCF is determined to rescue. Others include pangolin, African forest elephant, Nigerian-Cameroon Chimpanzee, vultures, Cross River gorilla among others.
