The Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP) Nigeria, is a non-governmental organization with a mission to ensure the well being of tropical ecosystems as well as their human inhabitants through practical and innovative mechanisms of sustainable development.

In other words, BDCP Nigeria strives to determine the significance of the biodiversity in country through research, as well as exploring projects for the development and conservation of the areas in which these flora occur.

BDCP Nigeria was established in 1991 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, while its international programme was formally established during the Rio Earth Summit in 1994, at an African forum on biodiversity conservation.

BDCP is dedicated to poverty alleviation, health improvement, and environmental conservation. BDCP’s main goal is to ensure the well-being of tropical ecosystems and their human inhabitants through practical innovative mechanisms of sustainable development, including bioprospecting research, biodiversity inventory management and dissemination as well as poverty alleviation through benefit sharing.  BDCP has focused on this goal for nearly a decade, bringing together people and resources to improve the lives and welfare of people in tropical ecosystems in Africa in general, but more specifically in west-central Africa. 

The involvement of BDCP with policy on Africa ranges from the national to the international.  In the international arena, BDCP’s benefits sharing program has been used as a model demonstrating the successful implementation of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), leading to work on the design of benefit sharing models for the Organization of African Unity (OAU).  BDCP’s work in Nigeria has been instrumental in establishing the Ministry of Environment.  Presently, BDCP is the lead organization in the development of a national biodiversity action plan (NBSAP) for Nigeria. Also, BDCP has collaborated with local NGOs and the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, and is working on strategies for sustainable use and development of biological resources in Nigeria.  This effort is expected to considerably leverage   the long-term work on the assessment and monitoring of biodiversity in Nigeria.

BDCP has developed respectful and productive avenues of communication between people of varying backgrounds who share like interest in sustainable development. BDCP works with traditional healers, community groups, western-trained scientists, private sector interest groups, policy makers, international funding agencies and other NGOs. BDCP’s biodiversity conservation programme seeks to create economic incentives for conservation by adding value to natural resources.

Though a non-profit organization, BDCP Nigeria has established a Trust Fund for Integrated Rural Development and Traditional Medicine, which is intended solely for purposes of conservation, drug development and the socio-economic well being of rural communities. To ensure community participation, the Trust Fund is made up of an independent board with a predominance of leaders of traditional healers associations and representatives of village councils. These work with government officials and technical experts from scientific institutions.

Realizing that the genetic resources of the country is in danger of disappearing as a result of the increase in industrialization and other anthropogenic factors in the last two decades, BDCP Nigeria has developed a strategy of approach towards ensuring a balance between human consumption and natural regeneration of the ecosystem.

BDCP Nigeria approach to this is a system of activities: