A visiting assistant professor at the D.B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Dr. Bridget Aito-Bobadoye, has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to prioritize policies addressing the threat of re-emerging invasive pests in the country.
Dr. Aito-Bobadoye made the appeal during an interview in Ilorin on Friday, where she also advocated for a harmonized biosecurity act across African nations.
She emphasized the need for Nigeria and other African countries to adopt new regulatory frameworks to safeguard forests and prevent the proliferation of invasive pests, which threaten ecosystems, food security, and economies.
“Forests in Africa are becoming fragmented at an alarming rate, causing huge ecological imbalances,” she noted.
“Insect pest invasions and outbreaks are becoming more frequent and severe, exacerbated by climate change. This has led to an increase in biosecurity threats such as invasive pests and infectious pathogens, endangering food security, human and animal health, and national economies.”
Dr. Aito-Bobadoye, also a principal research fellow at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, explained that biosecurity entails preventing the movement of disease-causing agents across borders or ecosystems.
She observed that Nigeria’s porous borders and unregulated trade routes, particularly for goods like unprocessed wood products and firewood, pose significant challenges to detecting and managing biosecurity risks.
She warned that weak regulatory policies in Nigeria and across Africa contribute to the unchecked spread of invasive pests and pathogens.
To address these challenges, she called for the establishment of a regional biosecurity act to enhance emergency pest response programs and strengthen existing frameworks governing the import, export, and internal control of plants and animals.
“This act will help establish regulatory guidelines to limit the transport of unprocessed wood products and plants that could vector these pests across borders,” she explained.
“Policymakers need to amend and adopt new animal acts to ensure compliance with international agreements such as the Nagoya and Cartagena protocols.”
Dr. Aito-Bobadoye highlighted the importance of collaboration between immigration services and forest departments, particularly phytosanitary commissions, to prevent the spread of invasive pests from local forests to global ecosystems.
Her research focuses on the ecology of highly damaging insects, such as the long-horned beetle Anoplophora glabripennis, which has devastated forests worldwide.
She emphasized the urgency of implementing quarantine measures to minimize the risks posed by invasive pests and diseases entering or leaving Africa’s borders.
She concluded by urging African nations to strengthen their biosecurity measures to protect their ecosystems and economies, ensuring a sustainable future for the continent.
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