By Martha Agas
The Chairman, Ekuri Initiative in Cross River, South-South Nigeria, Mr Martins Egot, has decried invasion of the community’s rainforest by loggers, describing the impact as devastating.
Egot expressed concern on Wednesday at the virtual unveiling of the Global Witness 2025 Report titled; “Roots of Resistance’’.
The unveiling was convened by the Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI).
He said that Ekuri, a combination of two communities identified as Old and New Ekuri, had 33,600 hectares of pristine forest in 1992, but was now under threat and in an appalling state.
“We now see international loggers come into Ekuri to exploit the resources that we have.’’
According to him, it is being recklessly exploited and the government authorities that are supposed to check these activities are not checking it.
“Now the problem we have is being confronted by external forces who are interested in logging our resources’’, he said.
Egot said that communities that had lost forests to illegal activities were pressuring Ekuri and mobilising youths to engage in similar act of illegality.
He alleged that some illegal loggers armed, including foreign companies, were stirring unrest among Ekuri youths.
According to him, such acts trigger youths to feel cheated as outsiders profit from their forest resources amid local economic hardship.
He said the Ekuri initiative was set up to manage forest resources successfully until a government moratorium was introduced, alleging that it was encouraging illegal activities.
Egot said as forest defenders, their lives were at risk from attacks funded by big companies and alleged that they do not have any reliable government institution to turn to in such matters.
“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, “he said.
In her remarks, Global Witness Senior Advisor, Laura Furones said the report documented the number of killings and disappearances of land and environmental defenders globally in 2024.
Furones said the report captured 146 cases worldwide in 2024, a decrease from 196 in 2023, which indicated that on average, three defenders were killed or disappeared each week.
She said in Africa, the report documented nine defender killings in 2024, four in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), three in Liberia, one in Cameroon and one in Madagascar.
According to her, 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.
In his remarks, RDI executive Director, Philip Jakpor said that the report which featured the situation in Ekuri community had broken the norm of global reports with far-reaching impacts that exclude Africa
Jakpor said that the report challenged environment and land rights defenders across Africa to own their destinies by speaking up so that the many injustices perpetrated by state-backed corporate entities could be exposed and challenged
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