Nigeria News

CROSS RIVER STATE, Nigeria — Sampson Akoba's long career as a ranger has left him with a wealth of assorted memories: hunters’ revolts, the death of his nephew in a…

CROSS RIVER NATIONAL PARK, Nigeria — It wasn’t supposed to be this straightforward. For days, we’d crisscrossed rainforest-blanketed mountains, hacked through thorny thickets and corkscrewing lianas, narrowly escaped rockfalls, and…

Nigeria’s emergence as a trafficking hub for illegal wildlife appears unhindered by the coronavirus pandemic. Between 2016 and 2019, some 200 metric tons of pangolin scales were seized by law…

Authorities at the Nigeria Customs Service have announced the seizure of 7.1 tons of pangolin scales that smugglers were attempting to ship out of the country. According to customs officials,…

Today we take a look at efforts to protect the Cross River gorilla, one of the world’s rarest great ape subspecies, which include a radio program broadcast to nearly 4…

On March 30, authorities in Nigeria imposed a lockdown on the commercial city of Lagos, neighboring Ogun state, and the capital city Abuja. As COVID-19 spread to all 36 of…

George Mgbang battles to rein in his anger whenever he encounters wire snares, newly cleared farms, empty cartridges, hunting camps, loggers, or shotgun-wielding hunters during his regular patrols in Afi…

There are only about 300 Cross River gorillas left in the world, making them the rarest subspecies of gorilla, or indeed any great ape. But in late June, a camera…

IJARE, Nigeria — The silver blade slides through the log laid over a metal bed beneath the sawmill machine. When the careful routine ends, one of the two operators pulls…

As she peered into the collection chamber of her harp trap, Iroro Tanshi instinctively knew she had caught something peculiar. It was small, with large ears, and a button-like patch…

IKPAKO, Nigeria — Dark stumps of half-charred trees, dry cassava stems and dead tree trunks cover a large   swath of land on the way to Ikpako, a small farming enclave…

Nigeria's Ekiti state government has moved to establish a conservation area within the Ise Forest Reserve, an important step toward protecting the habitat of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti).…

Law enforcement officials around the world have seized more than 200 tonnes of pangolin scales since 2016, more than half of it linked to Nigeria, a new report has found.…

APOI, Nigeria — It’s sunset in the small Niger Delta village of Apoi. The town crier's bell rings out over tilted electricity poles and small bungalows. “The epiene people are…

By supporting programs aimed at securing the economic well-being of communities in Nigeria's Cross River state, the European Union hopes to help protect Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli), Africa's…

Around 400 people spread out across the coastline of a beach in the Lekki neighborhood of Nigeria’s commercial city, Lagos. Hands in gloves and some faces partly covered by disposable…

LAGOS — In early October, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) fitted six elephants in northern Nigeria's Yankari National Park with satellite collars. The collars will help WCS, which works with…

Widely sought for its scales and flesh, which are channeled into the illegal trade to buyers in Asia, pangolins are said to be the world’s most trafficked animal. They face…

LAGOS, NIGERIA -- Surrounded by smoke-capped dense forest thick with tall, evergreen trees and wildlife, the Ekuri people in southeastern Nigeria’s Cross River state treasure the forest near their homes.…

EPE, LAGOS – A babel of voices hangs in the misty air over the Oluwo bushmeat market in Epe, in Nigeria's southwestern Lagos state. Smoke curls toward women selling live…

LAGOS, Nigeria — Emmanuel Olabode stands over the fire at the Eri camp in Omo Forest Reserve, in southwest Nigeria’s Ogun state. The tongues of flames flicker to the wave…

OKUNI, Nigeria — The bulldozers returned to the forests of Cross River state in southeastern Nigeria in January. Their metal blades resumed tearing down rainforest, rubber and cocoa plantations, homes…

Nigeria plans to invest 180 billion naira ($500 million) to increase its palm oil production from around 600,000 tons a year to 5 million tons a year by 2027, reports…

OHOFIA, Nigeria — The fading sunlight, half-coned and yellow, turns the evening murky. The crowing of roosters mingles with the rattling of motorbikes as farmers make their way home from…

For many energy and environment problems that developing rural communities face, there exists a plausible technological solution. In communities that are economically or geographically isolated, tools that can save time,…

KANYANG, Nigeria — Former bushmeat hunter Jacob Osang says poverty and lack of options drove him to the trade. “There were no jobs, no opportunity anywhere,” Osang says. In 1985,…

BUTATONG, Nigeria — Until mid-2017, smallholder farmer Anthony Okwo was suspicious of the conservationists who visited his village of Butatong in southeastern Nigeria’s Cross River state. The village, where most…

Parrots around the globe are captured and sold as pets in a thriving illegal market that has carried more than 19 million birds across borders since 1975. The deadly beak…

Between America's abandonment of leadership on conservation and environmental policy, Brazil's backtracking on forest conservation, massive forest fires worldwide, and the revelation of a sharp increase in global forest loss…

The government of Nigeria has announced its plans to restore four million hectares, or nearly 10 million acres, of degraded lands within its borders. The West African nation is now…