INTRODUCTION

ICGN is an acronym for Institute of Certified Geographers of Nigeria. It is a mission-oriented professional body incorporated in Nigeria, under CAMA No 59 of 1990, to promote geographical sciences and its application to the solution of environmental and associated problems in Nigeria. Its membership is drawn from either concerned and motivated individuals, agencies and organizations interested in acquiring and applying geographical knowledge for sustainable development of the Nigerian environment or individuals, agencies and organizations seeking to benefit from the mission and preoccupation of ICGN. Its national headquarters is located in Kaduna, capital of Kaduna state of Nigeria.

NATURE OF GEOGRAPHY IN ICGN

In ICGN, geography is recognized as an academic discipline but we also uphold it as a mega-concept and a grand method.
As a discipline, it access measures, processes, stores and/or extends spatial knowledge associated with our world with particular reference to ecology and land use; nationalities, population, settlement and diseases, economics, relief and drainage, landscape; weather and climate, soils and vegetation, morphology and natural resources and collateral issues in development. Secondly, as a mega-concept, geography also aids our mental capacity to figure out the following: the nature of the place, its location and regional attributes; relationships between people and environment; and the scale pattern and process of movement and spatial interaction. Thirdly, as a grand method, geography provides for us a frame for defining and designing the multifarious ways we apply the tools of statistics, mapping, geomatics, remote sensing, surveys etc to access, interpret, explain and predict environmental phenomena.

We recognize at ICGN that the study of the above named concerns at the global, regional and local levels are shared by various disciplines in humanities, social sciences, natural science and engineering. The various disciplines especially in environmental and natural sciences, whose goals are cotermines with the goals of geography, in every material particularly, towards the understanding of our environment and our proper place in it are, in ICGN, termed geographical sciences.

The ICGN has the mandate to order and regulate geographical practice associated with
– Population Control.
– Urban problem
– Rural decay
– Land degredation and managment
– Land use mapping
– Water resources exploitation and development
– Clmate change
– Geographic Information System
– Natural Resources Inventory and Mapping.
– Biodiversity management.
– Spatial Interaction
_ Disease Etiology and diffusion
_ Delineation of Electoral and Census Districts
– Environmental Analysis and Management
– Remte sensing
-Geomatics and survey.
-Urban Planning
– Human Ecology
– Soil Conservation
– Urban Renewal
– Water Disposal Managment
– Disaster management, Architecture etc. The institute has the mandate to also regulate all the aspects of geography stated above.