Minister hails NESREA over data gathering

By Franca Ochigbo and Grace Obike, Abuja

The Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor yesterday praised the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) for embarking on gathering analysis of data and information on environmental activities.

Ikeazor said it was aimed at the confirmation, remediation and mitigation of environmental challenges, which brings it to the enforcement of all environmental law, guidelines, policies, standards and regulations in compliance with all international agreements, treaties, protocols and conventions which can only commence with the incentivisation and monitoring of the environmental media.

The Minister disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the 15th NESREA National Stakeholders’ Forum in Abuja, with the theme, “Environmental Data and Information: A Key to Environmental Governance in Nigeria.” She stated that environmental governance stretches to capture a wide range of environmental issues, including drought and desertification, soil erosion and flooding, pollutions from effluents and emissions, deforestation and solid waste menace, among others.

According to her, attempting solutions to this plethora of environmental problems without appropriate data and information will not lead to the expected result.

The Director-General, NESREA Prof. Aliyu Jauro said the agency has done well in data and information management as it has developed a compliance Monitoring Information System. (NECMIS), which is dedicated to ensuring that compliance records generated over years are organised to produce useful environmental information for environmental governance.