Economic Based Approach to Environmental Regulation as a Panacea to Effective Environmental Management in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria has an array of environmental protection legislation and regulations. However, their provisions have not resulted in environmentally cleaner behaviour, technologies or products, nor have they resulted in green development or an environment that is free from abuse and dislocation. It is therefore our belief that current legal mechanism have failed to provide adequate economic incentives to limit activities, which are environmentally damaging and therefore unable to achieve their environmental objectives. This paper advocates for a paradigm shift to economic based regulation as a means of achieving optimum environmental protection in Nigeria. It traces the inherent provisions in Nigerian Environmental Laws that have contributed to their failure to elicit the required environmental protection compliance and recommends the needed shift in environmental regulation to elicit appropriate environmental protection compliance from players and participants alike to avoid continued environmental spoliation.

Keywords: economic approach, environment, environmental protection, legal regime, regulation