A Nigerian NGO Resists Illegal Deforestation
By Christiana O. Johnson

Click here to read August action alert:
"Support Nigerian NGO in a campaign against a project financed by the government"

Introduction

Cross River State in the south-east of the country contains Nigeria's last major blocks of tropical high forest. But illegal logging has grown exponentially since a civilian regime was elected in 1999. It is supported by Federal and State Government office holders of the very highest rank, as well as by international timber companies, and now threatens the entire forest estate including those forests officially enclosed in the Cross River National Park.

Illegal logging, clear felling for plantations and big politicians' personal farms, as well as village farmers' bush burning, threaten to remove up to 2,000 km2 of tropical forest in 2001-02. At present rates, over 8,000km2 of Nigeria's last tropical rain forest and over 1000 species of plants as well as animals (forest elephant, drill, Preuss Guenon monkey) could be destroyed within the next three to five years as well as the useful NTFPs that generate the bulk of poor forest people's income.

Some officials in the Forestry Commission in Calabar, the capital of the State, estimate that nine out of ten trees felled daily are in excess of official quotas.

Resistance

From 1994 - 1997, Odey Oyama, now Programme Director of Rainforest Resource and Development Centre (RRDC), some Calabar activists and village youths and chiefs from around Ikom, in central Cross River State, organized popular resistance to illegal logging under the banner of Ikom Conscience. They opposed the establishment by the Hong Kong Chinese owned WEMPCO, at Ikom on the bank of the Cross River, of the largest wood processing factory in Nigeria. Due to infiltration of Ikom Conscience by WEMPCO' agents, internal dissension among members
greatly weakened the movement's effectiveness.

Currently, in the Central Senatorial District of Cross River State, RRDC is establishing Village Forest Protection Organisations (VFPOs) in forest communities where intensive illegal logging activities are prevalent. In Southern Cross River State RRDC is working with Ekong Anaku and host communities in the Ekinta Forest, campaigning against President Obasanjo's illegal acquisation of 10,000 hectares of community land for his private oil palm estate
development.

The campaigners' principal concerns are:

(1) That the communities' land has been taken from them without prior consultation, so their interests were not represented, and without due compensation.

(2) The land was given out by Donald Duke, Governor of Cross River State, illegally as a free gift in contradistinction to Land Use Decree No. 6 of 1978. Cross River State oil palms, public property, are being conveyed as a free gift to the cleared area for planting.

(3) It is mandatory (Decree 86 of 1992) that an EIA should be carried out prior to an agricultural project of this scale, but it was not done.

(4) The large farm is sited within areas of great conservation interest adjoining the Cross River and Korup National Parks respectively. The removal of the Ekinta forests now poses several environmental hazards. Because villagers are now without farms and without forests they will be forced to exploit forests inside these Parks. Also the Ikpan River, a major source of fresh water to the host communities, is threatened as are downstream swamps and watershed drainage.

In the course of the struggle Odey Oyama was subjected during two months to 24 hour (illegal) surveillance by the Cross River State police and security services (SS). But backed by some international NGOs, and encouraged by quiet local support from within government, Odey Oyama and RRDC have scored an historic first in the annals of Cross River forest conservation struggles.

After front page coverage by the reputable Nigerian weekly magazine Newswatch of the "Obansanjo, Duke Land Scandal", President Obansanjo is said to be withdrawing from the deal. This political climb down over a major environmental rights issue is without precedent in Nigeria, so plutocratic and autocratic are its politicians. But the loss of forest and NTFPs upon which the majority depend for their livelihoods, the bulldozing of thousands of illages' farms during clear felling 10,000 hectares and the destruction of bio-diversity and damage to the watershed cannot be undone.

Struggling for Environmental Rights

These true stories show that campaigning is feasible but requires funding as well as national and international support to become politically effective. Resistance campaigns for poor forest people's environmental rights also
require especial courage, integrity and commitment as well as rare advocacy and lobbying skills. Oyama's leadership abilities are recognized and respected by poor youth and women in the forest communities where he works. For them Oyama is a leader, one who sets an example and practices what he preaches. This week in one block of villages alone over 200 young men and women volunteered to work without pay for RRDC in its continuing campaign against illegal logging and deforestation by the greediest political class Nigeria has ever seen.

Given the environmentally destructive, poverty-inducing and kleptocratic practices of the Obasanjo government, Odey Oyama's struggle against illegal logging and deforestation sets him apart from other (timid or corrupted) environmentalists. His name arouses fear in some government circles, in WEMPCO and among some of their political allies. Others, too nervous at times about loosing their jobs to come out openly, give him their unreserved respect. For them and so many villagers Odey Oyama is a hero.