Nigeria, African governments urged to halt threats to biodiversity

As Nigeria joined the rest of the world on Monday to mark International Day of Biodiversity, the government and other African countries have been urged to put a halt to the threats to biodiversity posed by genetic engineering of living organisms.

The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) said the governments should rather make investment in nature-centred approaches to agricultural productivity and promotion of indigenous knowledge, cultures and biodiversity preservation.

The Director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey in the statement, regretted that policy makers were at ease while biodiversity was being eroded at an alarming rate, thus posing fundamental risks to the health and stability of ecosystems.

“The increased use of insecticides and herbicides on farmlands and the genetic engineering of crops to be insecticides themselves, kill intended and unintended insects and poses severe threat to biodiversity,” he said.

While noting that biodiversity plays a crucial role in ecosystem functioning, he said food production systems depend on the diversity of organisms.