A Professor of Marine Toxicology at the Rivers State University (RSU), Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Prof Erema Ransome Daka, has identified shipping, fishing, oil gas offshore production as human activities that constitute major threats to marine environment.
Prof Daka made this assertion while presenting a lecture at the 61 inaugural lecture series of the university held at the faculty of law auditorium in Port Harcourt, Wednesday.
He stated that these activities which pollute to the marine environment has remain a serious concern to the global community and made the oceans continue to suffer abuses from human activities, adding that monitoring of heavy metals with biological organisms required understanding of responses by local species and history of contamination.
According to him, consumption of fish and crab contaminated by heavy metals and PAH poses some health risks to human being especially those living within the Niger Delta regions due to what he described as heavy industrialised activities in the area.
Continuous monitoring of the environment is recommended and modern equipment are required”, he added.
Daka disclosed that plastic pollution has become an issue of grave concern that requires urgent institutional intervention in Nigerian context, as well as behavioural change, adding that there was urgent need for studies of micro plastics in the Nigerian coastal and marine environment.
He opined that we owed the collective responsibility to stem The Tide of abuse in order to end the suffering of the oceans, so that we can bequeath a sustainable environment to future generations.
The erudite scholar further disclosed that aquatic toxicology studies the effects manufactured chemicals and other anthropogenic and natural materials and activities on aquatic organisms at various levels of organisation, from sub cellular through individual organisms to communities and ecosystems, even as he said that the discourse mostly focused on both coastal areas and estuaries.
In his speech, the vice chancellor of RSU, Prof Blessing Didia, lauded the lecturer for his presentation, adding that he has proven his academic prowers and represented the institution well as a product of the university