Ecological Restoration in West Africa: Accomplishments, Challenges and Opportunities (October 2019)

IUCN CEM Ecosystem Restoration Thematic Group Webinar Series

Find the complete Series Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy4Yp_6qh0uEz_oq53_UhEDLHUZNPljRU

October 2019

Ecological Restoration in West Africa: Accomplishments, Challenges and Opportunities

The West African sub-region is faced by serious ecological and socio-economic issues which include desertification, declining water resources, deforestation/forest degradation, pollution, flooding and coastal erosion. The major drivers of these issues include; rapid population growth and economic development, climate change, inadequate framework for resources management, lack of legal rights of indigenous people, conflicts and extremism in some countries. Several restoration initiatives such as the great green wall, African restoration landscape initiative, Lake Chad restoration project, Ogoniland clean-up, NEWMAP, etc have been initiated at the local, national and regional level to help restore degraded environment, provide jobs for local people and combat climate change effects in the sub-region. Many of the ambitious programmes initiated in the region are plagued with multifaceted challenges that could affect the full implementation of the initiatives. The success of the various initiatives could help roll back desertification, increase forest cover, improve food security, eliminates force migration and reduce crises situation in many countries in the sub-region, hence there is need for a comprehensive review of the various restoration initiatives in order to achieve the desired objectives of the various projects especially as we moved into the Decade of Restoration for the progress of the sub-region.

Abraham Ekperusi, Lecturer, Nigeria Maritime University

Abraham Ekperusi completed his first degree in Environmental Biology and his M.Sc in Environmental Management both from the University of Benin. He is presently a doctoral fellow at the World Bank African Centre of Excellence in Oilfields Chemicals Research and he is also an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Marine Environment and Pollution Control, Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Delta State Nigeria. His academic research focuses on finding nature-based solutions for the remediation and restoration of crude oil polluted environment. Over the years, he has worked in the private and public sector as a volunteer, consultant and team member for nature and biodiversity conservation, environmental impact assessment and pollution studies. He is a member of the Society for Conservation Biology, Society for Ecological Restoration and Environmental Science Without Borders, Centre for Diverse Leadership in Science, University of California, Los Angeles, United States. He is also a member of the Ecosystem Restoration Thematic Group, Commission on Ecosystem Management, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Switzerland.
His interest is in biodiversity conservation, remediation/restoration of polluted environment, ecological disaster risk management and climate change.