Global Witness warns that environmental and land defenders face mounting threats, with Nigeria’s Ekuri community on the brink of losing its ancestral forest
By Bunmi Yekini
A new report by international watchdog, Global Witness has shed light on the deadly and escalating risks faced by land and environmental defenders across Africa, revealing a pattern of killings, disappearances, and criminalisation aimed at silencing those who challenge exploitation.
The report, Roots of Resistance, released on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, documents 146 cases of killings and disappearances worldwide in 2024, an average of three defenders killed or missing each week. Although the figure dropped from 196 cases in 2023, Global Witness stressed that Africa’s statistics remain deeply troubling and likely underreported.
Across Africa, nine defenders were killed in 2024, four in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), three in Liberia, one in Cameroon, and one in Madagascar. The DRC continues to be the deadliest country on the continent, with 78 killings recorded since 2012, mostly tied to the protection of natural reserves like Upemba National Park.
“These already chilling figures are most likely a gross underestimate,” said Laura Furones, Senior Advisor at Global Witness. “Just because we are not recording as many cases in Africa does not mean it’s not dangerous for defenders. In fact, the opposite is true, with severe repression of civic space leaving many too scared to speak out.”
In Nigeria, the Ekuri community of Cross River State, once celebrated internationally for its pioneering conservation efforts, now faces existential threats. Despite receiving a UN award for their forest management model, the Nkukorli Indigenous Peoples have seen their ancestral land opened to illegal logging and corporate expansion through state-backed policies.
“Like so many communities across the country, continent and the world, we have seen the devastating effects of rampant resource exploitation and corruption, all in the name of profit,” said Martins Egot, Chairman of the Ekuri Initiative. “We know how powerful community-led conservation can be in protecting forests and the planet. The international community must recognise the role we play.”
But defenders in Nigeria have paid a steep price. In January, environmental activist Odey Oyama, Executive Director of Rainforest Resource Development Center (RRDC), was arrested by more than 40 masked and heavily armed police officers. He and four others were charged with promoting inter-communal war, a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
“My arrest was a clear attempt to silence me for standing up to corporate logging interests and official corruption,” Oyama said. “Defending our environment is a perilous job. You can easily be killed. I have just been lucky.”
At the Nigerian launch of the report in Lagos, Philip Jakpor, Executive Director of Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), commended Global Witness for placing Africa at the center of its findings. “This report challenges environment and land rights defenders across Africa to own their destinies by speaking up so that injustices by state-backed corporate entities can be exposed and challenged.”
The report also documented criminalisation as a growing weapon of repression across Africa, with parallels drawn to cases linked to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), where 96 arrests of opponents were recorded between December 2023 and August 2024.
As the report makes clear, defenders like those in Ekuri remain the last line of resistance against unchecked resource exploitation, even as their safety and survival hang in the balance.