Women of the Lokiaka Community Development Centre have restored 190 hectares of oil-damaged swamp forest in Ogoniland, Rivers State, planting over 3 million mangrove saplings since 2018 in one of Africa’s biggest community restoration wins. The project, led by Ogoni environmental campaigner Martha Agbani, has trained more than 400 women from Bodo, Bomu, Yaataa and Teenama communities to replant forests wiped out by decades of pollution. Ogoniland has been the epicenter of over 50 years of oil pollution since Shell and NNPC began production in 1957. Thousands of spills contaminated creeks and farmland. Two major Bodo spills in 2008 released over 100,000 barrels of crude, destroying mangroves and fisheries. In 2015, Shell paid $83.5 million compensation and agreed to replant.
The Niger Delta holds 3,000 sq km of mangroves, forests that store four times more carbon than rainforests, protect coastlines and serve as nurseries for fish, crabs and shrimp. After pollution, they were replaced by invasive Nipa palm which does not sustain fisheries. UNEP’s 2011 assessment found benzene in Ogoniland water at 900 times the WHO limit and soil contamination 5 meters deep. Lokiaka was founded in Port Harcourt in 2009 by Agbani, daughter of activist Theresa Terabiewaa Agbani, inspired by the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. It started by selling seedlings to oil firms at N500-N1,000 each. Instead of classrooms, women are trained ankle-deep in swamps using a 2-meter spacing stick to mark planting spots for tidal flow. The group now targets 5 million trees by 2030. Locals say life is returning, with fish, crabs and shrimps back in Teenama Creek.
Martha Agbani is a Khana-born Ogoni environmental campaigner from Rivers State and daughter of activist Theresa Terabiewaa Agbani. She grew up with the smell of crude oil and rotting mangroves along Ogoniland rivers. The execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni activists in 1995 by the military regime shaped her activism. After her mother’s death in 2003, she joined the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) to mobilize women farmers affected by pollution. In 2009, she founded the Lokiaka Community Development Centre in Port Harcourt to support female farmers in environmental care. Lokiaka started as a small nursery, selling mangrove seedlings to oil companies for their remediation programs at N500 to N1,000 per seedling, using the proceeds to train women in restoration.
Training happens ankle-deep in black mud, under the supervision of experienced restorers, with a two-meter stick pressed into the swamp to mark where the next seedling will live. That humble spacing stick has become the symbol of restoration in Ogoniland, where the women of Lokiaka Community Development Centre are reclaiming forests poisoned by five decades of oil. “We are not just restoring ecosystem, we are restoring culture, livelihoods, homes,” says founder Martha Agbani. The method is deliberate. Instead of lectures, women learn inside the ecosystem they intend to heal – seed collection, nursery management, how water moves through wetlands, where mangroves can survive. It started small. In 2016, Lokiaka trained 250 women in mangrove nursery and planting. From 2018 to date, over 400 women from Bodo, Bomu, Yaataa and Teenama communities in Khana Local Government Area have been trained.
The principle is train and handover for sovereignty. Community sets the terms of repair. Many of those trained now replicate the techniques in their own villages, extending restoration beyond Lokiaka’s four sites. The stick ensures survival. It guarantees spacing that allows tidal flow and root growth, avoiding the mass planting in unsuitable areas that experts warn against. For women who depend on periwinkle, crabs and shrimp that live in mangrove roots, the training is also livelihood protection. It returns authority over soil and water to those most affected by degradation. Environmentalists say this gender-inclusive, low-tech model is why 3 million seedlings have survived where top-down oil company planting failed, reclaiming 190 hectares since 2018.
According to The Guardian’s report on October 2, 2026, the Lokiaka Community Development Centre has achieved a major breakthrough in the Niger Delta, restoring 3 million mangroves since 2018 and reclaiming 190 hectares of bare swamp forest in Ogoniland. This makes it one of the largest community-led restoration projects in Africa. Four key forests have been completed: Yaataa, Bodo, Bomu and Teenama Creek in Khana Local Government Area. At Teenama alone, Lokiaka planted 150,000 seedlings per site, with a total of 1 million earmarked for that forest. The group has now set an ambitious target of 5 million mangroves by 2030, working at a rate of 500,000 seedlings per year. The milestone shows that women-led, low-tech methods using local knowledge can outpace corporate remediation programs that failed for years in Ogoniland.
Ecological recovery is now visible across the restored creeks. Fish, crabs, lobsters and shrimps have returned to waters that were empty for over a decade after oil pollution killed mangrove roots that serve as breeding nurseries. Community monitors report improved water quality and reduced shoreline erosion, as dense mangrove roots now stabilize mudbanks against tidal floods. Women harvesting periwinkles say catches have increased, restoring livelihoods lost since the 2008 Bodo spills. Beyond numbers planted, biodiversity is rebuilding, with birds and mudskippers seen again in Bodo and Bomu. Scientists note true success must be measured by long-term forest health, hydrology and survival rates, not just planting counts, but early signs indicate Ogoniland’s swamps are healing.
Why It Matters for Nigeria’s Ecology This is one of Africa’s biggest community restorations wins and a flagship for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It proves women-led, low-tech restoration works where top-down oil-company planting failed for years in Ogoniland. Mangroves store four times more carbon than rainforests, protect coastlines from erosion and serve as nurseries for Nigeria’s fisheries. Restoring 190 hectares revives food security, livelihoods and climate resilience for Rivers State. More importantly, it returns environmental sovereignty to Ogoni women who suffered most from pollution, showing locally-owned repair can heal both ecosystem and community where court settlements and corporate clean-ups could not.
