Analysis - In Cross River state, home to much of Nigeria's remaining forest, locals and officials accuse the state government of profiting from illegal logging.
through the rainforest. Local activists called upon support within and beyond Nigeria, eventually delivering a petition with over 250,000 signatures to the federal government. In 2017, state officials agreed to re-route the planned road away from protected areas.conducted to make way for plantations of cocoa, palm oil, and other crops. With consent from the state, agribusinesses have cut down hundreds of hectares of forest in recent years to repurpose the land for commercial monocropping.
The Ekuri community has found it similarly difficult to combat illegal logging. In 2008, the state government outlawed these forest activities in a bid to slow deforestation. The ban, however, drove up the price of timber and led to the emergence of a lucrative black market. According to Edwin Ogar, an Ekuri chief and former head of the Ekuri initiative, one felled tree today can be worth around N10 million .
Raphael Offiong, director of the University of Calabar Carbon Innovation Center, concurs."The forest is almost gone," he says."The government itself is complicit [and] the forestry commission is an accomplice."
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