By Juliet Umeh

Nigeria can unlock significant tourism revenue, create jobs and improve community livelihoods by protecting its remaining elephants and investing in wildlife tourism, stakeholders in conservation sector have said.

The stakeholders also urged the Federal Government to emulate Rwanda and Tanzania, where wildlife conservation has been integrated into tourism and local economic development.

They spoke during a virtual media engagement organised by Wild Africa, a conservation communication organisation, in partnership with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, NCF, ahead of World Elephant Day, marked every August 12 of the year.

Wildlife veterinarian and conservationist, Dr Mark Ofua, said Nigeria had an estimated 400 elephants remaining in the wild, comprising about 300 forest elephants and 100 savannah elephants.

He said the country was losing a major economic opportunity by failing to protect its wildlife and develop sustainable tourism around it.

“We are blessed with natural resources that we are not harvesting,” Ofua said.

According to him, an elephant could generate significantly more economic value through tourism during its lifetime than what could be obtained from illegal killing and trafficking of its body parts.

“You know, one elephant in its lifetime, I think it is estimated, can raise over $50 million throughout its life from tourism,” he said.

“But when you kill it and you remove the tusk or you eat the flesh, how much are you going to get out of it?”

Ofua cited Rwanda’s gorilla tourism model, where tourists pay premium fees for controlled visits to wildlife habitats, creating employment and business opportunities for surrounding communities.

“For the gorilla trek, you pay $1,500 for the gorilla trek. And that is to spend one hour with the gorillas,” he said.

“The rangers are from the community. The forest guards are from the community. The veterinarians are from the community. So you see that the children of the community have jobs.”

He said Nigeria could develop similar models around elephants and other wildlife.

Also speaking, NCF biodiversity programmes lead, Dr Stella Egbe, said Nigeria was endowed with wildlife and natural attractions capable of supporting a vibrant tourism industry.

“We are so blessed that we’ve abused a lot of the blessings that we have. We have wildlife. We have a lot of landmark areas that could fetch us a lot when it comes to tourism,” she said.

Egbe said tourism could create multiple economic benefits around conservation areas.

“If you allow the elephants in Yankari to thrive and a visitor comes here and pays a gate fee, we know what he’s going to do and how that is going to feed into job creation,” she said.

“It is going to feed into the support for local communities. The person that is selling food is going to make money from that. The transport companies are going to make money from that. Safari companies are going to make money from that.”

However, the experts warned that Nigeria’s tourism opportunity could disappear alongside its elephants if urgent conservation measures were not taken.

Egbe said habitat fragmentation, human-elephant conflict and inadequate funding were threatening the remaining population.

“Many of these movements that used to be vital to preserving our healthy elephant population and preventing breeding are facing the challenge of fragmentation,” she said.

The experts called for stronger government funding, private-sector investment, improved security around wildlife habitats, community-based conflict mitigation and effective implementation of Nigeria’s National Elephant Action Plan.

Ofua urged the private sector to treat conservation as an investment rather than charity.

“These are ways that the private sector can come to support conservation efforts, and it’s a must. It’s a direction we must go into,” he said.

The experts stressed that protecting elephants would not only save an endangered species but also preserve forests, biodiversity and a potentially lucrative tourism economy.