Joseph Adeniran Adedeji is a chartered architect and researcher. He is an indigene of Ìta-Òtutù, Ilé-Àdàgbá, Láfogído Ruling House in Ilé-Ifè, the cradle of Yorùbá Nation in Southwest Nigeria. A Senior Lecturer/Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria, Joseph is currently at the University of Nürtingen-Geislingen, Germany as a research Fellow of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His teaching, research works, and publications are situated at the intersection of spatial considerations for the comfortable use of urban open spaces, environment and behaviour, cultural morphology of cityscapes, and more intensely, landscape hermeneutics of the urban grain in an African context. Specifically, he has a passion for researching the socio-cultural aspects of ecosystem services of urban green infrastructure and biocultural identity of the Yorùbá Nation of Southwest Nigeria.

We spoke to Joseph Adeniran Adedeji about the mission of the World Exhibition and about the role of hunters and hunting in Nigeria and around the world.

– What do you see as the main mission of the ONE WITH NATURE – World of Hunting and Nature Exhibition?

The World Exhibition is an innovative state-driven vision for nature conservation. This is materialising in a way which is at the scale of this great mission. I see the main mission here as being a timely, organised approach to make humanity realise that non-human and more-than-human nature are not just part of our ecological system, but occupy an important position that – for our wellbeing – we need to recognise, understand, and be proactively ready to cohabit in a symbiotic manner. The coronavirus pandemic should teach us that the perceptibly smallest – and even the “invisible” – elements in non-human and more-than-human nature are important to our existence in an ecosystem we claim to have control of. It is now clear that they now have the capacity not only to influence us, but to dictate how we live, exist and survive in a pandemic world!

– What role do you think hunters and hunting play in nature conservation efforts?

Hunters and hunting are not only important to nature conservation efforts: they are the conditio sine qua non for preserving endangered species that are threatened with extinction by predators. The populations of endangered species are kept optimally within their ecosystems through the process of maintaining an optimum population of predator species. Hunters are also key informants on nature conservation efforts: in the process of hunting, they are able to identify and characterise the population profiles of different species of wildlife in different habitats.

– What are the most important tasks for hunting and nature conservation efforts in your region?

Hunting and nature conservation would require more rigorous organisation and attention by the Nigerian state. To date, nature conservation has received some enviable attention only within the legal framework of the Nigeria National Park Service, with only eight national parks listed as of 2020. Aside from the rules protecting wildlife in these parks, little attention has been paid to hunting at the national level. At the local level, hunting needs more state inputs in terms of making incentives available for socially-inclusive hunting that encourages the participation of both elite and non-elite hunters.

– An important part of your research focuses on the sociocultural life of the Yoruba people. What could modern city-dwellers learn from this unique ethnic group?

Modern city-dwellers have much to learn from the Yoruba people. In the first instance, we all need to understand the paradox between modernism and the place of pre-modern value systems in sustainable urbanism. The Yoruba nation of South West Nigeria has – aside from its extensive diaspora – a huge population of over 44 million people, it is the most urban of all African peoples, and it is the largest single homogenous ethno-linguistic group in Africa. Yoruba urbanism predates European influence and is socioculturally special, with the Yoruba people – especially traditionalist segments of the population – holding nature and nature conservation in high esteem in their mythology and daily life experiences. This kind of relationship with urban nature has produced and sustained wellbeing strategies that modern city-dwellers can benefit from within a unique indigenous knowledge system that is original and reliable – and on many occasions judged to be more potent than Western practices.

– How would you describe the current societal role of hunting in Nigeria?

The current societal role of hunting in Nigeria is multifarious. At the economic level, hunting provides a means of livelihood for the majority of rural and semi-urban dwellers. In most of these communities, hunted animals are the primary source of protein. Many hunters base most of their livelihood on the business of hunting as primary consumers who sell to retail and wholesale bush-meat merchants in most of the rural and semi-urban settlements located along intrastate and interstate highways. This is a huge commercial sector in Nigeria. Another very important current societal role of hunting in Nigeria is security surveillance. Due to the limitations of the state security apparatus in scanning and understanding the terrain of local forests where most of the victims of the current kidnapping menace are kept for the purposes of torture and ransom negotiation (usually involving millions of Nigerian naira), groups of hunters – who in various communities are believed to be in contact with the spirit world and armed with invisible traditional strategies – have come to the rescue. In many urban settings, various hunter groups form vigilante patrols providing security for residential neighbourhoods and quarters at night.