She said the ministry, through its agency had recently obtained the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval to establish 10 national parks across the geopolitical zones of the country to tackle and reverse the severe trend of biodiversity loss in Nigeria as a way of combating environmental hazards.
The meeting with the theme; “Appraisal of the Emerging Challenges and the opportunities in the Environment Sector: A call for Actions towards the Environment of our Dream” aimed to explore ways to tackle environmental challenges such as climate change, deforestation, desert encroachment, loss of biodiversity, flood and erosion, environmental pollution among others.
She said the ministry was also constructing six water supply schemes with a capacity of supplying 2,400 cubic meters (m3) of potable water per day to communities across the four local government areas of Ogoniland.
Mrs Ikeazor said the ministry was accelerating the implementation of the Great Green Wall Programme through its agency, which had cumulatively increased the total average of arable land recovered from a baseline of 90 hectares in 2019 to 4,792 hectares by second quarter of 2021.
” It has also increased the number of trees (orchards and woodlots) from 1,080,000 to 5,612,400.
In the same vein, she said the Federal Department of Forestry and Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN) had also increased the vegetation cover from the baseline of 155,200 trees in 2019 to 635,840 by the second quarter of 2021.
The minister revealed that 504,280 Kg of PET and e-waste plastics had been recovered for treatment in an environmentally sound manner.