2030: FG announces 30% ECOWAS region protection 

Federal government has announced 30% to secure effective protection of the ECOWAS region by 2030. 

The Minister of State for Environment, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, made this known Wednesday during the high-level segment of the 16th meeting of the conference of parties to the convention on biological diversity held in cali, Colombia.

He added that Nigeria is leading the way with ECOWAS nations to ensure the implementation of 30 by 30.

According to him, Nigeria is coordinating to jointly seek the designation of the first generation of highly and fully protected marine protected areas in the high-seas.

“We are also uniting to launch a coordinated action to combat illegal and unsustainable exploitation of threatened wild species,” he said.

Dr Salako explained that we are seeking to work with leaders around the world on the development of mechanisms to advance equitable accountability for truly global action on halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030. 

“We need true partnership between Global North and Global South to meet these goals. 

The ecosystems are being drained of their ability to support us, and we can not be passive spectators as the crisis unfolds in front of us,” he stressed.

Dr Salako point that the concerned of our efforts continue to be compromised by significant delays in the allocation of financial resources. 

The Minister noted that the global community committed in target 19 (a) of KMGBF to allocate at least USD20 billion per year by 2025 and USD30 billion per year by 2030 to developing countries for nature finance.

“Ambition for Nature cannot be dissociated from Ambition for Nature finance, the two go hand in hand. If we don’t deliver on nature finance, the commitments we made in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will remain empty aspirations. 

Dr Salako further states that delivering 20 billion in biodiversity finance to the global south is a modest step in the right direction. However, the world is clearly not on track to achieve these commitments.

The ambition on addressing biodiversity loss need to be matched with accountability in meeting the funding commitments that have been made to developing countries. 

He emphasised that the wealthiest countries need to match with finance the ambition on nature protection coming from the Global South, and let us go back on our commitments.