Efforts at conservation of shellfish livelihoods in Nigeria like other environmental and biodiversity policies lag behind other sectors in policy and legislative reforms and have yet to receive the deserved recognition and serious consideration (Raji et al., 2012). Existing laws are obsolete as only conservationists, scientists and environmentalists are concerned about biodiversity despite its contribution to the livelihood of rural and urban dwellers. Nigeria has entered into some international treaties on biodiversity conservation, but these have been followed by slow or very poor implementation with little budgetary allocation to implement them. Hence, it is common to observe biodiversity related laws being broken due to low or no awareness and lack of capacity for law enforcement agents to deal with the issue (Nigerian Fifth Biodiversity Report, 2015).
The current study assesses the scale and scope of shellfisheries and shellfish-based livelihoods connected with mangrove systems and coastal water bodies in Nigeria through a participatory approach. This study complements a literature review covering shellfisheries in each of the 11 coastal West Africa countries from Senegal to Nigeria (Chuku et al. 2020).
