New report highlights plight of environmental defenders in Nigeria, other African countries

The Global Witness has released a report showing that land and environmental defenders across Africa continue to face different forms of attack in a bid to shut down dissent.

Published on Wednesday, September 17, the report Roots of Resistance highlights the number of killings and disappearances of land and environmental defenders globally in 2024. In total, Global Witness documented 146 cases worldwide last year, down from 196 in 2023. On average, this is around three defenders killed or disappeared each week.

In Nigeria, the report captured the situation in Ekuri community on the border of the Cross River National Park in Cross River State, which is now on the front lines of a battle to save its ancestral forest.

Despite winning a UN prize for their pioneering efforts, the Indigenous Nkukorli Peoples have seen their sustainable forest management system undermined by government policies that have paved the way for illegal logging and the expansion of corporate interests.

As a result, community activists have been subjected to escalating threats, violence and criminalisation as they fight to protect their land and livelihoods.

At the Nigeria Launch of the Global Witness 2025 Report hosted by the Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI) in Lagos, Global Witness Senior Advisor Laura Furones said: “These already chilling figures are most likely a gross underestimate. The continued difficulty in building an evidence base on the situation faced by defenders in Africa has led to the under-reporting of attacks and the under-representation of defenders in this region.

“Just because we are not recording as many cases in Africa, that does not mean it’s not dangerous for defenders. In fact, the opposite is true, with the severe repression of civic space leaving many defenders too scared to speak out in the first place.”

Once hailed as a model for community-led conservation, Nigeria’s Ekuri community is on the verge of extinction.

Ekuri Initiative Chairman and Executive Director of Panacea for Developmental and Infrastructural Challenges for Africa (PADIC-Africa), Martins Egot said:  “Like so many communities across the country, continent and the world, we have seen the devastating effects of rampant resource exploitation and corruption – and devastation of our land and environment – all in the name of profit.

“We know how powerful community-led conservation can be in protecting forests, and the planet – we have seen it for ourselves. The international community must recognise the role we play. When communities like ours are empowered, they become the most effective guardians of the environment.”

In January this year, environmental defender Odey Oyama was arrested by a team of over 40 police officers wearing masks and armed with guns. Along with four others, he was charged with promoting inter-communal war, which carries a penalty of life imprisonment.

Executive Director of Rainforest Resource Development Center (RRDC), Odey Oyama, said: “My arrest was a clear attempt to silence me for standing up to corporate logging interests and official corruption. It’s a tactic used to intimidate those who oppose the destruction of our forests.

“Defending our environment is a perilous job. You can easily be killed. I have just been lucky. It is vital that international bodies support forest defenders like me and hold accountable those who facilitate illegal logging.”

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Earlier, Executive Director of RDI, Philip Jakpor, said that the Global Witness 2025 Report has broken the norm of global reports that exclude Africa. He also pointed out that the report challenges environment and land rights defenders across Africa to speak up so that the many injustices perpetrated by state-backed corporate entities can be exposed and challenged.  

In 2023, Global Witness published an investigation into abuses linked to East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) – a proposed $5 billion, almost 900-mile long pipeline that would run through both Uganda and Tanzania. There were at least 96 reported cases of people being detained or arrested for opposing the pipeline from December 2023 to August 2024.