Education
Nnimmo Bassey: Deforestation, mining and criminal fiefdoms – EnviroNews
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Welcome words by Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), at the 3rd Nigeria Socioecological Alternatives Convergence (NSAC) held at Abuja on Tuesday, July 14, 2026
The Nigeria Socio-Ecological Alternatives Convergence (NSAC) is more than a gathering. It is a meeting of minds, movements, communities and peoples determined to review the state of the Nigerian environment with particular reference to mining, deforestation and environmental security. In other words, we will be examining extractivism, climate change and related forced displacements and other conflicts.
These necessarily require that we rethink our relationship with Nature, our relatives, and to collectively imagine pathways towards a just and regenerative future. In examining the Socioecological import of our situation, we will be confronting uncomfortable realities, sharing lived experiences, and advancing alternatives rooted in ecological integrity, justice and solidarity.
The convergence begins with a simple but profound understanding that every ecological crisis is ultimately a crisis of values and governance. We also believe that every crisis created by human choices can be addressed through human responsibility. The first step towards healing is to stop causing harm. Forests cannot regenerate while chainsaws continue to roar.
Rivers cannot recover while mining wastes poison their waters or where under the cover of the beautiful blue economy toga we dive into deep sea mining and other harmful activities. Communities cannot thrive while the ecological systems that sustain life are systematically destroyed.
This year’s theme, “Deforestation, Mining and the Crisis of Human Security in Nigeria,” invites us to examine some of the most pressing socioecological challenges confronting our nation. These are deeply interconnected expressions of an extractivist development model that treats forests as timber reserves, mountains as unwanted barriers to mineral deposits, rivers as waste channels, and communities as expendable and disposable sacrificial zones.
The theme is particularly timely. Recent announcements by the Federal Government on the discovery of a world-class polymetallic mineral province in Kaduna State containing platinum groups of metals, gold, nickel, copper, lithium and rare earth elements have been greeted with much excitement. We are also witnessing major investments in lithium exploration, processing plants and mineral beneficiation as Nigeria seeks to position herself within the global drive for so-called critical minerals.
Overall, there appears to be growing optimism that solid minerals will diversify the economy and create new opportunities for national development. Meanwhile, we are yet to have serious conversations on what sort of development we desire.
Have we learned the lessons of almost seven decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta? Confirming that we are not ready to learn the hard lessons of how crude oil has literally set the Niger Delta on fire, we recently saw the celebration of oil finds in Ogun State.
Shall we also celebrate new mineral discoveries without first consulting with the communities and ensuring that the governance systems exist to prevent fresh sacrifice zones? Will communities once again bear the environmental costs of extractivism while others accumulate the wealth? Do our communities not have a right to reject mineral or timber extraction in their territories? These are questions of responsibility that demand answers.
We will also discuss the critical issue of deforesting in Nigeria. Records show that forests in Nigeria are disappearing at the rates of 250,000 – 300,000 hectares annually. That is an equivalent of 350,000 to 420,000 football fields per year. Primary forests currently cover only 1.3% of the nation’s landmass. It is believed that at the present rate of deforestation, there may be no forests in Nigeria by the year 2052. Forest ecosystems that once protected biodiversity, regulated rainfall, and sustained livelihoods are steadily shrinking under the pressures of commercial logging, agricultural expansion, infrastructure projects and mining. Every forest lost weakens our ecological resilience and increases our vulnerability to climate change.
Speculators and governments are also enclosing huge swathes of forests in the drive for carbon trading and other forms of carbon colonialism. Under the umbrella of mangrove restoration and climate action, Delta State has earmarked 250,000 hectares of mangrove forests for restoration and conservation – for carbon credits that will be grabbed by polluters. Niger State on her own earmarked over 760,000 hectares of land to a UAE company, Blue Carbon, to plant one billion trees for carbon credit purposes.
The enclosure of the commons always means the displacement of the poor who at best become forest guards and forgo the benefits that centuries of dependence on forests had developed.
Mining has followed a similar trajectory. Across gold fields, lithium deposits, limestone quarries and coal belts, promises of development often result in polluted streams, degraded farmlands, abandoned mine pits and displaced communities. The wealth extracted from beneath the soil rarely translates into improved well-being for those living on the land. Instead, many communities inherit environmental degradation, health risks and social conflicts while others accumulate the profits.
Critical minerals may indeed be essential for the technologies driving the global energy transition. But the transition itself cannot become another excuse for colonial extractivism. There is no justice in replacing fossil fuel sacrifice zones with so-called green mineral minerals extracted in the same destructive manner. A transition that destroys forests, contaminates rivers, displaces communities and undermines human dignity is not a just transition as it simply perpetuates and expands the ecological crisis.
Destructive mining, deforestation and other types of extractivism weaken human security and heighten vulnerabilities. Working behind military shields does not ensure human security? Human security cannot be assured by militarization of territories. A nation cannot claim to be secure when its people lack clean water, fertile soils, healthy forests, safe food and safe air. Security begins with the protection of the ecological systems upon which life depends. Livelihoods disappear, conflicts intensify, displacement increases, and social stability becomes increasingly fragile once these systems collapse.
We must also recognize that ecological destruction is rarely accidental. It is often enabled by policies that privilege short-term economic gains over long-term public welfare; by weak environmental governance, inadequate regulation, and the persistent exclusion of communities from decisions affecting their lands and livelihoods.
Throughout history, communities have demonstrated that another path is possible. Indigenous knowledge systems continue to teach us that forests are living communities rather than timber reserves, and that rivers are sources of life rather than waste channels, and the land is not a commodity but a shared inheritance held in trust for future generations.
The best preserved forests in Nigeria today are those managed by communities. Caring communities don’t see trees or forests as mere carbon sinks. They see them as living spaces with living communities of beings other than humans. Clearly, forest conservation is strongest when forest dependent communities are custodians of their territories. This should not surprise anyone. Those communities depend on their forests as sources of food and medicine, places for education and recreation, and incubators of culture and spirituality. These are reasons why communities protect their forests. Indigenous forest management knowledge combined with sound forest governance ensures preservation of forests and general biodiversity.
Someone once observed that southern Niger Republic is greener than northern Nigeria. Why should be so? It is time to take another look at our forest, support the forestry service and at the same time learn and popularize people-centred indigenous forest regeneration techniques and technologies. Community-driven agroforestry techniques are proven was of forest regeneration.
When forests are opened up for mining activities such forests inevitably get denuded. Reckless or uncontrolled mining poisons water bodies and destroy ecosystems and related webs of life. The obvious outcome is the abridgment of the right to a safe environment and overall right to life of forest dependent communities. Some forests have become habitats not for wild life but for wild humans, bandits and terrorists, who disconnect communities from their forest and sometimes turn the territories into exclusive islands of criminal fiefdoms.
This convergence is therefore both a moment of reflection and a call to action. We are here not merely to diagnose problems but to strengthen movements, exchange experiences, build alliances and advance practical alternatives capable of transforming our socio-ecological realities. Our responsibility extends beyond the present generation. Intergenerational justice demands that we leave behind forests rather than deserts, living rivers rather than toxic dumps, thriving communities rather than sacrifice zones. We owe this duty to ourselves, to our children, and to generations yet unborn.
As we engage in this convergence, it is our hope that our conversations will be courageous, our reflections honest, our solidarity strengthened, and our commitment to ensure the needed socioecological transformation is renewed.
The time to change course is now.