I work as Conservation Biologist and Lecturer at A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI) – West Africa’s foremost Ornithology and biodiversity conservation training Institute. Most of my work uses birds to better understand ecological processes and how this is affected by anthropogenic activities. I also help design and implement species and habitat conservation projects focused on birds. All this work also contributes to the training and capacity building work that I am fortunate to do at APLORI. I am also a passionate advocate for public participation in biodiversity conservation in Nigeria and have mainly done this through my work with the Nigeria Bird Atlas Project – a citizen science project encouraging public participation through bird watching for biodiversity conservation in Nigeria.
As part of my work studying the factors that influence the density and distribution of birds in Nigeria, I found that land use change mainly involving the conversion of natural woodlands to farmlands and the removal of trees continue to impact birds. This impact has been varied: open habitat and farmland species including some of the Afro-Palearctic species that have been a focus of some of my work appeared to benefit from some of these changes. In other work, I have also observed that most Afrotropical resident species, and particularly forest dependent species, are adversely affected by this change. As part of my work in the forests in Nigeria, I observed that not only were the forest species being adversely affected, other environmental challenges such as land slides which are thought have be linked to the increasing deforestation rates appear to have increased in frequency in those areas.
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