Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment recently nominated Finima Nature Park in River State as a Ramsar site: a wetland of international importance.
These sites are designated under the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental environmental treaty established in 1971 by UNESCO. It aims to protect representative, rare or unique wetlands, or those important for conserving biological diversity.
The Finima nature park, when finally gazetted, will be Nigeria’s 12th Ramsar site. Established by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company in 2001, the park covers about 1,000 hectares. It’s a mixture of tropical rain forest, mangrove swamps and freshwater ponds and is home to birds, crocodiles, snakes, alligators and the salt water hippopotamus.
Apart from conserving species, wetlands help to control floods, replenish groundwater, stabilise shorelines, retain nutrients and purify water.
The park will join Nigeria’s protected area of 445 forest reserves, 29 game reserves, 12 strict nature reserves, 11 Ramsar sites, 7 national parks and one biosphere reserve. Read more…
