BWP to raise awareness that Poverty should not Justify Poaching

As far as Nigeria is concerned, poaching, at least, within the country is a crime committed predominantly by the poor and impoverished. This scenario with the sensibilities and sentiments surrounding it, sometimes sway the hand of justice to render mild penalties to offenders. As a result, experts advise that the Barcode of Wildlife Project should be used to create awareness on the extent of criminality practiced by poachers and the danger it poses to the environment. 

Some Poachers arrested by Park officials in South West, Nigeria

In a presentation, at the Legal Standards Workshop on DNA Barcoding evidence, held recently in Abuja, Nigeria; Barr. Godwin Ugwuja, the Legal officer of the Kainji National Park, Niger state of Nigeria, reported that most offenders prosecuted for wildlife crimes were poor and indigent fellows, who readily pleaded guilty and gave no room for contentions that could lead to forensic testing of samples.

In some of the cases the Magistrate either gave them lighter penalties or acquitted them on compassionate grounds. In a certain event, a notorious offender serving a jail term was released due to an intervention of a human rights activist who argued that a human being should not be so punished for killing an animal. However, the prosecuting lawyer reopened the case and based on existing laws, the offender was punished accordingly .This implies that the existing laws are sufficient for nipping the crime of poaching in the bud irrespective of who is committing it. 

  Poaching is traditionally defined as the illegally hunting, killing or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Until the 20^th century, mostly impoverished peasants poached for subsistence purposes, thus supplementing a scarce diet. By contrast, stealing domestic animals such as cattle raiding is considered theft, not poaching. Since the 1980s, the term poaching has also been used for the illegal harvest of wild animal and plant species.

In 1998, environmental scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst proposed the concept of poaching as an environmental crime, defining any activity as illegal that contravenes the laws and regulations established to protect renewable natural resources including the illegal harvest of wildlife with the intervention of possessing, transporting, consuming or selling it and using its body parts. They considered poaching as one of the most serious threats to the survival of plant and animal populations. Poaching is considered to have a detrimental effect on biodiversity both within and outside protected areas as wildlife populations decline, species are depleted locally, and the functionality of the ecosystem is disturbed.

In march 1973, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species(CITES),of Wild Fauna and Flora was signed in Washington D.C. and amended in June 1979 to Conserve biodiversity and contribute to its sustainable use by ensuring that no species of wild fauna or flora becomes or remains subject to unsustainable exploitation through international trade, thereby contributing to the significant reduction of the rate of biodiversity loss.

Nigeria is the first African country and infact the second country in the world to ratify CITES in 1974 and the desire and commitment of the Federal Government of Nigeria to take very seriously, the protection of  her rich fauna and flora gave rise to the creation of the  National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA)in 2007,  to enforce all environmental laws, standards  and regulation as well as enforce compliance with  provisions of all environmental conventions, aggreements and protocols to which Nigeria is party .