The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva has charged environmental practitioners and stakeholders in Nigeria to think globally and act locally in addressing all the myriad of environmental issues confronting the nation. The Honourable Minister stated this while delivering a paper at the 29^th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Environmental Society (NES) in Benin Edo State, on the theme: “Narratives of The Nigerian Environmental Needs – A Holistic Approach”

In his presentation, Chief Timipre Sylva noted that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contains targets to help tackle a wide range of global and local development and environmental issues, including the link between pollution and poverty, and called for adequate policies in delivering the SDGs so as not to pose risk of pollution and its impacts on poverty.

The Honourable Minister however proposed adoption of sound, practical and integrated environmental management strategy, stakeholder’s collaboration and public involvement as a pragmatic approach to dealing with the narratives of the Nigerian Environmental Needs.

On the challenges of climate change phenomenon, whose global context is, of course, defined by the Paris Agreement (adopted in December 2015 and entered into force a year later), Chief Timipre Sylva advocated for firm policies premised on scientific basis, widely accepted by government and society to deal with climate change threats in Nigeria