JIMITOTA ONOYUME

PORT HARCOURT: The Minister of Environment, Mrs Lawrencia Laraba-Mallam, has inaugurated working groups in the Niger Delta to evolve solution to tackle degradation of the ecosystem in the region.

Speaking in Port Harcourt, the Minister who was represented by an Assistant Director, Global Environment Fund, GEF, Mrs Halima Mohammed, expressed the hope that the government would achieve results with the emergence of the working groups.

She added that the solutions would put an end to ecological related problems in the region.

Continuing, she said the government would review its strategy regularly because of the peculiar nature of the region “the peculiar nature of the delta demands a regular review and update of strategies.”

On his part, the Director General, National oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Mr Peter Idabor, lauded the effort of the government to set up working groups in four states in the region to find an end to the problem.

He said his agency has activated the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) in Port Harcourt.

“The objective is for NOSDRA to assess the industry and stakeholders’ capabilities to respond effectively to worst case scenarios of oil spill and to appraise the effectiveness of inter-agency collaboration as a necessary ingredient for a successful Tier 3 spill management,” he explained.

The Coordinator of the Biodiversity Project, Dr Matthew Dore, who also spoke said the groups were set up in four states in the region as a pilot scheme. The states are: Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Delta.