RIVERS COUNCIL CHAIRMAN, ERASTUS AWORTU PROPOSES BILL TO BAN HUNTING IN HIS LGA

 

Hunters in Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State will soon be asked to stop hunting activities within the forests in the LGA.

This is because the authorities of the Location Government Council have designed a blue print to conserve the environment of area and harness its rich tourism potentials for the sustainable economic development of the people.

Chairman of the Council, Barr ERASTUS CHARLES AWORTU disclosed this at a strategic meeting with chairmen of the various Community Development Committees (CDCs) at the Council Secretariat, Ngo Town.

The Council Boss informed the CDC chairmen that his administration would soon present a Bill to the Legislative Assembly to formally ban hunting in the local government, thereby,  giving a legal backing to the policy.

While asking for the understanding of the community leaders, AWORTU said the aim of his administration to ban hunting in Andoni forests was to conserve Wildlife in the area for greater economic gains.

AWORTU, who observed that Andoni is naturally endowed with humongous tourism potentials, assured that his administration would fully harness and exploit the tourism potentials of the LGA to develop the local economy and enhance the wellbeing of the people.

He harped on the need to preserve the Biodiversity of Andoni as it is the source of wealth, adding that the contribution of Wildlife conservation to the sustainable economic development of the area “cannot be over-emphasized”.

Speaking to newsmen shortly after the meeting, AWORTU said: “We discussed about preserving our environment especially; the Wildlife. You are aware that recently an Elephant came out of our forest, we have to preserve them because they are part of us, they are our own source of wealth, we are going to exploit all available potentials in our land, so we have to preserve them.

“We are sending a Bill to the Legislative Assembly to ban hunting within our forest so that we can preserve this exquisite Wildlife we have, that God has blessed us with”

The Andoni Council Chairman, ERASTUS AWORTU also said that the issue of deforestation which constitutes a major threat to Biodiversity was canvassed at the meeting, even though, no decision had been  reached on that by the stakeholders.

“We talked about deforestation, you know most of the activities, the hunting and even the logging are carried out by non-indigenes. On the hunting we were very clear on it, we agreed, on the issue of deforestation we agreed to discuss further on it to see how we can preserve the environment, its all process of consultation and I know we are going to get it right”.

He said the meeting specifically discussed and agreed on modalities on how to mobilize the people at the grassroots to participate in the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise by INEC.

BraveViews reports that the chairman’s move comes one week after an Elephant was spotted in Ikuru Town and months after a giant Swordfish worth hundreds of thousands of dollars was caught at the Oyorokoto Fishing Settlement in the LGA.

On his part, the CDC Chairman of Ngo who doubles as the Chairman of Conference of CDC Chairmen of Andoni LGA, Mr. CLEMENT CLEMENT acknowledged the effort of the Andoni Council Chairman, ERASTUS AWORTU in restoring peace to the troubled communities of the Isiokwan District of the LGA, where thousands of riverine dwellers of the area who fled their homes in the wake of cult related violence in the area, had returned to their communities.

He also lauded the Andoni Council Boss for the ongoing road rehabilitation and construction as well as the upgrade of dilapidated basic infrastructure in the area by his administration.

Mr.Clement pledged the total support of the CDC Chairmen to the ERASTUS AWORTU led administration of the Local Government Council in his quest to bring the desired change to Andoni and take the area to an enviable height.

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