Nigeria’s parks chief stresses conservation gains amid struggle to protect wildlife

Nigeria has scored a significant conservation victory with the closure of a major illegal gold mine near Gashaka-Gumti National Park, the country’s largest national park, according to National Park Service Ibrahim Musa Goni. An estimated 4,000 miners have been driven from the Kila mining area following an operation involving the National Park Service, the Nigerian military, state governments and conservation partner African Nature Investors (ANI). But Goni, conservator-general of Nigeria’s National Park Service, is under no illusion that the problem has been settled. The gold remains underground, and the miners could return. “There is a tendency the miners might come back,” he told Mongabay. For Goni, who has led the service since 2017, the Kila operation is one of the achievements of which he is most proud. He believes the approach could work in other Nigerian parks struggling with illegal mining and insecurity. Yet protecting these landscapes has come at a heavy price. Rangers have been injured and even killed confronting illegal miners and armed groups. Elsewhere, insecurity has forced the suspension of tourism in parts of Kainji Lake and Chad Basin national parks. Goni insists that 13 of the 17 national parks in Nigeria remain operational and active, even where access has become dangerous. Watch: Return to Gashaka-Gumti Read: Nigeria drove thousands of gold miners from a national park. But can it keep them out? There are other difficult questions. For example, what happens to the thousands of miners who have lost their livelihoods? Can the government keep them…This article was originally published on Mongabay