FG to privatise 3 national parks

08 Jun FG to privatise 3 national parks

The Federal Government is set to partially privatise three of its national parks as part of efforts to optimize the conservation of the biodiversity in the protected areas and turn them into top tourists destinations.

Conservator General of National Park Service, Ibrahim Goni, who spoke while receiving two Land Cruiser trucks from African Nature Investors (ANI) at the headquarters of the service in Abuja, urged the private sector to key into the initiative.

Goni said, “Conservation is increasing becoming a private sector driven business and that is why Nigeria in her wisdom has decided to toe the line of privatizing some of our activities. The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) is currently working with the National Park Service (NPS) for the partial commercialization of three of our national parks. This is to key into the global agenda of trying to bring in NGOs into conservation activities and I hope that with the penciling down of Cross River National Park, Kainji Lake National Park and Gashaka -Gumti National Park, the process will be fast tracked so that in no distant time, investors and entrepreneurs coming into this country will support the government.”

The three national parks are in Taraba/Adamawa, Cross River and Niger states.