Nigeria, like much of the world, is losing its trees at a rapid rate. For one group of women here, enough was enough.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
The forest had given Doris Ofre everything.
When she was growing up in southern Nigeria, it was her family’s supermarket, pharmacy, and ATM. If her mother needed cash for her school books, she sold oranges and mangoes she picked in the forest. If they wanted adventure, Ms. Ofre and her friends played hide-and-seek beneath the tree canopy, and tossed bananas to the monkeys hanging in the branches.
So when the forest that had given her so much was threatened by illegal loggers, Ms. Ofre didn’t hesitate.
She picked up her machete, and with 20 other women, marched toward the scene of the crime.
Globally, the world’s forests are receding at a rapid clip, with more than 40,000 square miles disappearing annually, according to the United Nations. Nigeria is on the front lines of this crisis. The country has lost 13% of its tree cover since the year 2000, according to Global Forest Watch, which tracks deforestation around the world. In Cross River state, where Ms. Ofre lives, that loss is particularly consequential. With the state being home to half of Nigeria’s rainforest, communities there have long relied on the forests for their survival.
That’s why, in 2018, Ms. Ofre, who is a farmer, and five other women in Olum decided to form an informal forest policing squad to stop their forests from being chopped up and carried away. Armed with machetes, hoes, and the authority to name and shame locals who participate in illegal logging, they have helped vastly reduce the practice here, according to local authorities and environmental activists.
Because illegal logging is so lucrative, men in the community might have allowed it to continue, says Fredaline Akandu, the king, or paramount ruler, of the Boki district. “But women don’t tolerate it.”
The scramble for Boki’s trees
Ms. Ofre’s connection to the forest began early in life. She grew up in Olum, a farming village carved into the mountainous rainforest near Nigeria’s southeastern border with Cameroon. As a child in the 1960s and ’70s, she says, she was taught that the forest was her community’s wealth. The forest was where her family and neighbors went to cut down wood for their houses, taking only as much as they needed. Women collected vegetables there to cook with and sell.
Saint Ekpali
A sign mounted by conservation groups encourages forest protection in Olum, Nigeria, Sept. 20, 2024.
However, beginning in the 1980s, Ms. Ofre began to notice the trees disappearing. It started with the growl of chain saws. Then huge trucks would appear at the edge of the forest. They arrived empty, but left loaded down with wood. Usually, the men cutting down the trees were locals working for outside companies. Occasionally, Ms. Ofre even saw people she knew personally.
Soon, they noticed other changes. Foraging for once-abundant wild mushrooms became a treasure hunt. The monkey population dwindled so much that when Ms. Ofre’s children were growing up in the 1990s, she had to take them to a nearby monkey sanctuary to see the animals at all.
The 16 villages surrounding the forest weren’t the only ones that recognized the problem. In May 2000, the state government established the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary in Ms. Ofre’s backyard. The reserve was meant to provide protection to the region’s several endangered species, including the Cross River gorilla, one of the world’s rarest great apes. It also prohibited logging anywhere in the park grounds.
