INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS ON BIODIVERSITY, NATURE, CONSERVATION AND THE PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN NIGERIA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The term biodiversity from ’biological diversity’ refers to the variety of life on Earth at all its levels from genes to ecosystems and can encompass the evolutionary ecological and cultural processes that sustain life. Biodiversity includes not only species we consider rare, threatened or endangered but also every living thing from humans to organisms we know little about, such as microbes, fungi and invertebrates. At the centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, we include humans and human cultural diversity as a part of biodiversity. We use the term “biocultural†to describe the dynamic, continually evolving and interconnected nature of people and place and the nation that social and biological dimensions are interrelated. The world had continued to lose its biodiversity as a result of both direct and indirect pressures, including habitat destruction, over exploitation, the spread of invasive alien species, climate change and population pressure. Laws on biodiversity, natural conservation and the protection of cultural heritage depict those rules or set of rules, enforceable by the courts, regulating the government of a state, the relationship between the organs of government and the subjects of the state and the relationship or conduct of subjects towards each other in order to maintain and sustain their earthly existence for sustainable development. National, bilateral and multilateral efforts to halt and reverse the loss has given rite to a number of legal regulatory and policy regimes that are currently under implementation. We shall take this legal enforcement on biodiversity laws in Nigeria. The objective of this paper is to see how the enforcement and implementation of laws (whether national or international) on biodiversity can ensure healthy ecosystems, clean our water, purify our air, maintain our soil, regulate the climate, recycle nutrients and provide us with good for sustainable living. We adopted doctrinal methodology. We concluded by saying that biodiversity can be maintained and sustained when man is made and compelled to restrain from unnecessary tampering with natural habitat in the environment. This can be done through legal regulation, policy and sustainable life style. We recommended the use of laws (whether national or international) to checkmate the excesses of man against the environment. Punitive measures should be adopted to ensure compliance.