Nigeria's pangolins face extinction. One organisation is committed to reversing the trend - and coopting communities into conservation.
Christy's life would have ended several years ago. Her skins would have been removed, exported, and passed off as an ingredient to be used in traditional Chinese medicine. She is still alive today, all thanks to the Pangolin Conservation Guild Nigeria or PCGN, a nonprofit organisation based in Ogun State, southwest Nigeria.
The energetic and night-active Christy is no human but a pangolin rescued from her captors along with her mother from the illegal wildlife trade, and taken back to the wild in 2020.
Christy is far from the only one. According to the University of Oxford, pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammal in the world. Their meat is considered a delicacy in Asia while their scales are also used in Chinese traditional medicines, fetching huge sums on the black market.
"This pangolin was a very playful and lively one which lighted up the room by its presence. Christy was a healthy pangolin with no form of injury on it. Some of the other pangolins we rescued have wounds of varying severity and are usually stressed from transportation and inhumane restraint," said Oladipo Omotosho, the communications lead of the PGCN.
"We give our pangolins human names because it not only gives them identity, but also aids our bonding process and fosters a sense of care and responsibility toward their well-being".
Rising to the Rescue
Nigeria, Africa's most populous state, stands as a key transport hub for pangolins in the continent. Life remains precarious for the world's most trafficked mammal despite the country's renewed promise to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade the consequence of the lack of commitment to protect its biodiversity.
Although the country has signed up to different agreements that prohibit the hunting and commercial trade of pangolins, it has been involved in more reported trafficking of the species with data showing a significant spike in the illegal pangolin trade in the country between 2015 to 2019 with the reported provenance of at least 51 tons of pangolin scales seized in 2019.
Arrests and wildlife seizures are up in Nigeria but prosecutions are rare; stakeholders warn that patchy law enforcement means the scourge of trafficking continues.
A nonprofit organisation is making a difference. The PGCN is a group that has rescued over 100 of the so-called anteaters from different states across the country in the last few years.
Since its inception in February, 2016, it has been working to rescue and rehabilitate pangolins, research, and raise awareness about their plight and the need for conservation.
"When we receive them, we do an initial evaluation to determine their state and what care is needed immediately. A more thorough health assessment is done after to determine the appropriate veterinary and nursing care they require. They are rehabilitated before they are released back into the wild in protected forest areas," Oladipo explained.
Founded by Professor Olajumoke Morenike, a distinguished researcher at the University of Ibadan, PCGN works by engaging stakeholders -- hunters, bushmeat sellers and poachers -- through education and community outreach programs, offering them alternative livelihoods and motivating their participation in conservation efforts to reduce illegal hunting and trafficking.
PCGN's members include zoologists, veterinarians, animal scientists and undergraduates who are committed to driving the activities and projects of the group.
"The conservation of nature is the responsibility of everyone. We are all to play our parts in preserving the earth and its resources for our use and for generations to come. The pangolins are quite unique being the only scaly mammal in existence. They are harmless and relatively defenseless, explains Prof Olajumoke.
"They contribute to the health of the soil and control insect populations but quite unfortunately, there is demand for their parts for various purposes with significant demand from Asia leading to international trafficking. They are presently the most trafficked mammal globally," stresses Prof Olajumoke, a celebrated researcher on parasitology.
Heaps of Barricades
Despite previous and ongoing efforts at creating awareness on the need for pangolin conservation, there is still a large population to reach especially in the rural communities, Oladipo added.
In Nigeria, pangolins remain endemic and engendered especially in Ibadan and Ogun, Southwest regions of the country.
"We also observed that the high level of poverty in some of these communities where pangolins are found, coupled with the existing demand for pangolins, is a challenge we face. We are solving this through a multifaceted campaign aimed at making the people see the reason for conservation of these creatures beyond the immediate benefits of poaching and trade.We are also working with community leaders and law enforcement agencies to drive compliance with national and international laws on conservation of endangered wildlife.
Aside from funding, PGCN is constrained by a need for a space for research and rehabilitation. "As our activities are expanding, there is a need for more centres for our rehabilitation, research and administrative activities. As a first step to solve this problem, the organisation got an allocation of 3.5 acres of land within the University of Ibadan. We have started to develop the first phase and when completed will enable our activities and improve pangolin conservation."
Against all odds, PGCN continues to create a safe space for pangolins in the country. Oladipo said they see this as a "noble duty that we owe to nature to play our part in preserving biodiversity. It is necessary that we, the government and individuals stand up for the protection of pangolins against illegal wildlife trafficking for the greater good."
'A Paper-tiger Action Plan'
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species CITES) has classified most sub-species of pangolins as endangered or critically endangered with great chances of becoming extinct in coming years if there is no intervention to reverse current trends. In an exclusive interview with African Arguments, the Director of Programs, United Nations Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Country Office, Folusho Ajayi explained that most courts in Nigeria had not had cases of wildlife crime, further compounding the issue.
"Until recently, Nigeria has limited awareness of the concept of wildlife as a crime even amongst the criminal justice players tasked with combating this crime. Also, there is very limited government funding put towards the interdiction and prosecution of wildlife crime, which hampers the ability of these agencies to undertake their mandates. A lot of the interventions we are seeing in Nigeria today are mostly due to funding interventions by donor agencies," she buttressed.
Folusho noted that to complement the efforts of local groups like PGCN, the UNODC has extended a plethora of programs to the Nigerian government to tackle the menace, stressing the need for more effective implementation of planned actions to drive meaningful changes.
"UNODC found that two-thirds of the seizures involving Nigeria, were reported by other countries, meaning they had left Nigeria's shores undetected. So, though there has been an uptick in wildlife seizures by the Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria is not detecting most of the illegal wildlife trade passing through its borders and ports.
"One of the ways we are providing support to Nigeria aside [from] funding, policy and research, is through interventions like the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytical Toolkit and Indicator Framework Assessment, which are resources to assist governments in understanding the main issues relating to wildlife crime and forest crime in their country and review and assess the effectiveness of countries' criminal justice response in tackling wildlife and forest crime."
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In April 2022, Nigeria launched its first-ever National Strategy to Combat Wildlife and Forest Crime in Nigeria 2022-2026 to free the country from wildlife and forest crimes, developed with the support of the UNODC with the Government of Germany. However, experts like Mark Ofua, Country Representative, Wild Africa Fund in Nigeria, argued that the government is paying lip-service to the issue of wildlife protection in the country, adding that such instructional frameworks without implementation amount to zero feats.
"Over time, Nigeria has not been mindful of the wildlife let alone protecting them. We have fines that are now updated, dating back 30 years so they are really not punitive and the laws are not even enforced," he told African Arguments.
"The situation is worse because some of our law enforcement agencies do not even know about protected or vulnerable animals so this has made the trafficking go largely unnoticed and there is a kind of turning a blind eye to the organized crime of trafficking when their palms have been greased with tokens."
The conservationist shared that while his team is working on a program to support Nigerian law operatives with tools to check illegal activities swiftly at the nation's porous borders, he would want the government to conduct more training and support them with incentives to save the "enormous loss of our pangolins."
Mohammed Taoheed is a Nigerian freelance journalist covering stories at the intersection of conflict, misinformation, climate change, geopolitics, development, and social dynamics.
