GREEN PROFILE: Emmanuel Asuquo Obot...Environmentalist, Educationalist

                                                      Picture courtesy birdlife.org

Born 11 April 1952, Prof. Emmanuel Asuquo Obot was a professor of Botany, a renowned Orchid Specialist with expertise in use of Geographical Information System (GIS) applications. He was the Executive Director of Nigeria’s premier and foremost conservation NGO, Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), Chairman of BirdLife’s Council for the Africa Partnership (CAP), Co – Chair IUCN Commission on Environmental Economic and Social Policy (CEESP), Member, IUCN Working Group on Extractive Industry and Biodiversity (WGEIB), and Member, IUCN Orchid Survival Group.

His unparalleled experiences in protected area management; biodiversity conservation and related research; forest resources policy and management; natural resources policy advocacy; community based conservation management; and wetland resources management span over 3 decades. Prof. Obot’s impeccable biological research ability and effort earned him honours citation in the rare butterfly subspecies - Acraea oreas oboti – named after him. 

He worked for over 30 years in design and implementation of demonstration projects to elucidate strategies for environmentally sustainable community based development processes that guarantees access rights and secure land tenure to local people as well as development and application of participatory renewable natural resources management tools with local people living around protected areas in Nigeria.

He led the NCF team to facilitate the development of Natural Resource Management Plans and Sustainable Community Development strategies for targeted communities in the Niger Delta region towards the promotion of a paradigm shift among Niger Delta Communities and Governments from oil and gas to sustainable management of renewable natural resources towards poverty reduction through the realization of the trade value of biodiversity.

He was Professor of Botany and Dean, Faculty of Science, Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) from 1991 to 1994. Prof. Obot was the Biological Research Coordinator of Okwangwo Programme, Cross River National Park, Nigeria from 1994 to 1998. Between 1987 and 1989, he was Senior Lecturer, River’s State University of Science and Technology. He was also Research Officer at the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research from 1979 to 1989 where he began his career in biological research interfaced with environmental management.

Apparently well versed with the use of mathematics in biology, Professor Obot has published several mathematical models. In 1984, developed a computer based model for the management and utilization of the aquatic macrophyte, Echinochloa stagnina (that invaded Lake Kainji) as dry season livestock fodder for nomadic livestock that otherwise lose weight and form due to inadequate feed during the usually long dry season associated with semi-arid areas of Nigeria. Today, the results of this work is of direct benefit to people because the harvesting, drying and sale of Echinochloa “hay” based on the models is a full time occupation of a section of the population of villages around Lake Kainji especially in Birnin Yauri.

Professor Obot represented Nigeria at many international conferences and participated in the negotiation and conclusion of several treaties and conventions related to nature conservation

He successfully sponsored three motions at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Congress in October 2008, namely: Motion 108 – Establishing 1% earth profit fund and sustaining government conservation fund; Motion 122 – Establishing IUCN Extractive Responsibility Initiative; Motion 127 – Establishing Citizen Advisory Council for large scale extractive industry project.

His work (in collaboration with others) in oil and gas issues helped to draw the attention of stakeholders to the unacceptable levels of hydrocarbon pollution in the Niger Delta, Nigeria; producing, so far, the most comprehensive oil spill map for Nigeria. This work concluded that 9 – 13 million barrels of crude oil has been spilled in the Niger Delta within the last fifty years.

He died in a plane crash on the 3rd of June, 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria.