Stand Out For Environment Restoration (SOFER) Initiative

The booming illegal trade in wildlife products is eroding Earth’s precious biodiversity, robbing us of our natural heritage and driving whole species to the brink of extinction. The killing and smuggling is also undermining economies and ecoystems, fuelling organized crime, and feeding corruption and insecurity across the globe. (UNEP - www.wed2016.com) "Go wild for life" is the theme of the World Environment Day (WED) 2016 and we have been called to promote wild life conservation and take action against illegal trade of wild animal parts. SOFER Initiative joined the world in this celebration by partnering with Pandrillus (Drill Ranch) to promote the Great Afi Mountains in Cross Rivers State, Nigeria and their almost 30 years of dedication to breeding and rehabilitation of over 500 Drill monkeys and Chimpanzees in this over 5 sq km of untampered natural rain forest. Volunteers from SOFER Initiative took a 7 hours road trip from Calabar to the Afi Mountains

Its a pretty rewarding experience to see a conceived idea come into fruition when on a totally different journey. This was the case for Emmanuel Sofa (Coordinator - SOFER Initiative) who in a pursuit of his career as an Air Traffic Controller decided to indulge in a recycle project during his Area Control License course at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria. He subjected himself to collecting bottle caps from his course mates, the school cafeteria and sometimes out of trash bins to carry out the task. Through a span of 3 months during his course, he gathered enough used plastic bottle caps to execute project KEEP NCAT CLEAN, GREEN & SERENE. Hammering tiny nails into every bottle cap used to form these words, Emmanuel alongside a fellow course mate (Kalu Ogbonna), a serving corp member at the college (Amina Fagbayi) and a local staff (Ibrahim Garba) put together this project in 2 days. The recycle slogan was presented to the Deputy Rector of NCAT (Capt. O. J.