Management plan for wetlands being developed

Nigeria is developing a management plan to preserve the bio-diversity of the wetlands of the Niger, Benue and Chad basins in the northeast, the Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday. An inventory of wetlands is also being compiled. Further strategies to resolve the problems affecting the fast-declining wetland regions are to be developed by an inter-ministerial committee inaugurated on Tuesday by the federal Ministry of Environment, the newspaper reported. These wetlands include Lake Chad, whose size is now less than half of what it was three decades ago, according to various studies. It quoted the Minister of State for Environment, Imeh Okopido as saying at the inauguration that the wetlands were rich in aquatic resources and helped to stabilise rainfall and temperatures, to retain sediment and soil nutrients, and to purify and stabilise shorelines. "They are also important for fisheries and agriculture and maintain water-tables while retaining nutrients in flood plains," the newspaper reported the Minister as saying.