Forest In The Stomach

by Temitope Rebecca Abisoye

Should we rather eat at the forest's expense? or should the forest be preserved while the people starve?. This is the current situation that has put the Indigenous people of Onigambari Forest Reserve communities in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, into a dilemma over the past years of their existence.

Whether or not to protect the forest has been a significant challenge as the local people tend to scale-up their means of livelihood due to the increasing population and the need to produce more food.

Going on a three-day holiday to visit my grandma was an eye-opener for me in the Onigambari community. Waking up the following morning and stepping outside with a broom in my hand to sweep the floor, then I saw a woman coming with a basket on her head. Good morning, I said to her in our local dialect while she put the basket down and delivered them to grandma for her to trade as she also greeted grandma in our local dialect and waved goodbye.

15 minutes later, my grandma called my name to help her set her little shop in front of her house. While setting her little trade shop and opening the delivered basket, then I saw forest products such as Irvingia gabonensis fruits, African star apple, among many others. This gave me some hint that a forest exists in the community.

While my grandma joined me at her shop, I asked her about the Onigambari Forest Reserve condition, and she told me about the history and services of the forest reserve to the community. There she said to me about how the forest reserve has served the community in terms of food and income. Grandma said, 'There are golds in the forest, but unfortunately, today's people do not value it. Many of the trees that once served the people are all gone.’ There I decided to visit the forest before I leave the community. My visitation to the forest shows me how much deforestation is being carried out as the local farmers clear more space to increase food crop production. On another side was the logger cutting down trees, and the forest looked so encroached.

This experience stirred up the climate action in me as I returned to my base, which is still in the same state but a different community. From there, I said within myself that there is need to be a nature-based approach that would allow the forest and the people to coexist without degradation and also sustainably managed. With the trend of community activities, all forest would be gone at the expense of increasing food production, and the ecosystem would be destroyed by the unsustainable activities of the people in the forest.

Then I held a meeting with other board members of the organization I co-founded, EdenWorld Initiative to share my experience and why I would want the forest reserve to be our approved project focus. After which I wrote a proposal letter to the Director of forestry, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources for partnership and support to restore the Onigambari Forest Reserve, which I proposed 10,000 indigenous/economic trees species, which was approved. Then, I tagged the project as Rural Livelihood Empowerment; Pathway To Forest Recovery with objectives to Restore forest degraded lands, carry out Climate/Forest education, Rural women livelihood empowerment ('green jobs') Agro-ecological farming/Agroforestry training for the farmers. Then I also submitted a letter to the Ministry of Education in Oyo state to carry out climate education in their schools to enable young minds better understand their environment, ecosystem and how they can take action locally, which was also approved.

From there, I wrote a proposal to three schools in the community, which was approved with fixed dates. I went to the community with my team to implement the climate education project, which was a success. We did it in three sections (climate education, workshop section on how to grow food with agroecological farming, and why grow trees?). For the three schools in that community, we educated 4271 students in public schools in total and planted 18 economic tree species (African star apple, Irvingea garbonensis, Dycrodis edulis, and others) in the schools. This was something that motivated me, as the students get to call me later in the evening to ask a question such as "my mum uses wood from the forest to cook, please what can she use in place of wood without affecting the environment?' this gave me joy because I was able to connect them to nature to take climate action for their future.

This was a step to familiarize me with the community and a motivation to do more as I visited the village head to carry out awareness/climate education in the community, which was approved by the village head, and we made plans together. The village head gave his full support as he loves to see vibrant young ladies making an impact. Then I make a call for volunteers who may want to join while we fixed the date. We then held the climate/awareness march in the community. What interests me more was seeing the students I educated joined us during the climate march/awareness, and in the process, we did forest /climate education as we divide ourselves into groups.

Furthermore, my team and I started with raising indigenous and economic tree species. Here we wrote to the Department of forestry and wood technology for land space to raise our seedlings as we have many volunteers in Akure. We picked Saturdays for seedling picking and filling of pollen pots through volunteers, we did seed treatment, planting operation and post planting operation which was managed by our nursery manager. After having about 4000 seedlings, we hosted agroecology training introducing hybrid seeds which are healthy to them with high yield while we donated 3500 seedlings to cocoa farmers in the community to plant on their farmlands. The seeds donated are soil regenerating, economical to serve the local people with its fruit, and indigenous to Nigeria while also serving carbon sink purposes. Here, we educated them on the agroforestry system. They tender their questions which we delivered to the forestry research institute of Nigeria in Ibadan, Oyo state.

This is something that interests and motivates me, seeing how the community are much aware of their environment. However, my goal is to empower the local women in the community, which would be termed 'green jobs empowerment', such as mushroom farming, rabbitry, waste to wealth which I am currently working on in partnership with World Ecological; Concept Ltd (a company I once worked with on green jobs empowerment for women and youth in Ibadan).

After which, I planned to host a virtual webinar to organize expertise to educate us on topics around our theme: Rural Livelihood Empowerment; Pathway To Forest Recovery to enable us to have a sustainable project with impact. Currently, we have restored 2500 seedling as the Onigambari reserve, which has been managed, and we will continue to restore the Forest reserve as it is now in collaboration with the communit.

Seeing the community having to feed their stomach and meet their livelihood without damaging the forest and its ecosystem is what I desire, hence my reason for taking climate action locally.

About

Temitope is a forester, nature lover, environment enthusiast, and cofounder at EdenWorld Initiative. She is also an advocate for green jobs as a way of protecting the ecosystem. She had her bachelor’s degree in Forestry and Wood Technology at the Federal University of Technology and a current MSc student in Conservation Biology, university of Cape Town. Her interest are in Forest restoration to conserve biodiversity, Forest/Climate Education, Rural Livelihood Empowerment in green jobs and Agroecology to increase food production. She also carries out extensive research to improve livelihood and conserve nature.

Her NGO EdenWorld Initiative is a youth-led non-governmental organization of mostly young forestry professionals and nature lovers dedicated to the advocacy of planting of more trees in Nigeria as one of the cheapest and fastest climate solutions inclined with SDG 2, 13 and 15. Their goal is to have planted 30 million trees by 2030.