#2025 was not just another year of
#conservation work, it was a year that
#redefined what is possible when conservation science, community power and unrelenting commitment converge. In the Niger Delta and the Ise Forest Conservation Area, we pushed boundaries, broke scientific ground, and influenced policy at a scale that will echo for decades.
On January 1st, 2025, the
#Bayelsa State Government announced a total ban on logging operations across the state — a monumental policy and administrative shift. This was not a
#coincidence: We ran a weekly radio program on Radio Bayelsa that educated communities to demand sustainability actions. Meanwhile, three community‑based conservation areas have been established in the State through our work. This is what community‑driven conservation looks like when it works: policy change at the highest level, championed by grassroots voices.
During the course of the year:
- we captured the first‑ever footage of the Critically Endangered Niger Delta Red Colobus amongst other scitific milestones. This breakthrough was not luck. It was the result of years of persistence and stakeholder engagement.
- we deepened partnerships, strenthened local insitutions and pushed for policy reforms;
- we supported community's socio-economic development aspirations;
- we worked with relevant stakeholders/authorites to have the community conservation areas registered on the
#World Database of Protected Areas;
- we produced evidence‑driven outputs that shaped public awareness;
- We brought
#communities together in social events such as festivals and football matches;
- we carried out infrastructual projects such as providing access to water for thousands of people and increased access to education including higher education learning across four communities.
- We provided comprehensive training and industry equipment to local-based MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) to boost their sales and profits.
Our initiatives are not just conventional conservation rhetoric to deliver measurable, on-the-ground results, they are stories of resilience, local leadership, and possibility.
The hashtag#work ahead is immense. But so is our hashtag#momentum. And so is our hashtag#resolve. #2026 will not be a hashtag#continuation. It will be an hashtag#escalation.
In summary, We have strengthened conservation in the hashtag#four protected areas we helped create in Africa's most populous nation and have now cleared the path for hashtag#three more. With these agreements signed, we are on track to see seven (or more) formal protected areas emerge from our work before the end 2026.
This is what it looks like when conservation stops being a concept and becomes a force!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR