How a Nigerian family saved a forest the world just noticed

Emerald Forest, Osun state

The road that leads to Emerald Forest Reserve does not inspire hope. For kilometre after kilometre, the landscape unfolds in stubborn monotony like palm trees, red laterite dust, and the skeletal silhouettes of what were once towering iroko and mahogany forests, cut down years ago and never replaced.

Then the road bends, and the canopy closes overhead. Something survived.

The Emerald Forest Reserve, a 120-hectare privately owned reserve, has been protected since 2003 by the Abayomi family.

“When we came here, you could already see what was happening,” says Ekundayo Abayomi, a retired gynaecologist and one of three siblings who have managed the reserve since their father died in 2003. “Every direction you looked, gone. We just said: this place stays.”

Until recently, it was known mainly to the Abayomi family and surrounding villages. Now it has been designated a global Key Biodiversity Area, an accolade that has thrust this quiet patch of forest into international conservation maps.

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The recognition rests on the wings of a bird few Nigerians have seen: Malimbus ibadanensis, the Ibadan malimbe, an endangered species once thought to survive only within the 1,000-hectare campus of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan.

The bird that changed everything

The Ibadan malimbe (Malimbus ibadanensis) is the kind of bird that conservation scientists lose sleep over.

Small, weaver-family, endemic to a narrow corridor in south-west Nigeria, by the mid-1990s it had been listed as critically endangered, one notch from extinction.

Its only confirmed habitat was the managed campus of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) near Ibadan, a roughly 1,000-hectare estate that represented what everyone assumed was the species’ last redoubt.

Then IITA’s Forest Centre, together with ornithologists from Nigeria’s University of Jos, sent researchers to the Emerald Forest Reserve. They came every three months for three years. They set mist nets. They recorded sound. What they found ended a years-long silence in the scientific record.

Among the dozens of species recorded was the Ibadan malimbe, small, dark and easily missed in dense foliage. More importantly, researchers found evidence of breeding: nests tucked high in branches, juveniles calling from within the canopy.

The discovery was significant. Between 1994 and 1996, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Ibadan malimbe as critically endangered due to its extremely limited range and habitat loss. Later sightings prompted its status to be revised to endangered, but its survival remained precarious.

Historically, the bird was associated almost exclusively with the IITA campus in Ibadan. Emerald’s population provided a second stronghold.

“If you thought something was gone, and you start seeing it again, that is good news,” Ekundayo Abayomi said. “Nature is recovering.”

Beyond the malimbe, researchers recorded Mona monkeys (Cercopithecus mona), ball pythons (Python regius), pangolins, civet cats and an array of plant species, including Afzelia africana and Nauclea diderrichii.

The data culminated in a 2020 publication in the Bulletin of the African Bird Club, proposing Emerald as a potential Important Bird and Biodiversity Area.

That scientific groundwork paved the way for its formal designation as a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA), a globally recognised status coordinated by the KBA Secretariat

For the three siblings who spearheaded the reserve’s transformation, Professor Akin Abayomi, Dr. Modupe Martha-Alice Ladipo and Dr. Ekundayo Maria-Juliette Abayomi, the moment feels less like a triumph and more like vindication.

“We just saw trees disappearing,” said Ladipo, a retired medical practitioner and co-director of the reserve. “We weren’t thinking of awards. We were thinking: if nobody stops this, there will be nothing left.”

What KBA status mean?

Key Biodiversity Areas are sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity. To qualify, a site must meet strict criteria, often centred on the presence of threatened species with viable reproductive populations.

Emerald’s trigger species was the Ibadan malimbe. The evidence of successful reproduction within its boundaries met the threshold.

The designation confers no direct funding. It does not automatically prevent encroachment. But it does place Emerald on international conservation maps, opening doors to partnerships and strengthening its case against potential land conversion.

“For us, it’s encouraging,” Ladipo said. “It means this effort of 25 years is recognised.”

The siblings planned a formal ceremony to mark the certification, inviting representatives from the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, IITA and local leaders.

“We want the community to know the significance,” she said. “It’s not just our forest. It’s theirs.”

Read also: Agroforestry: Blending farming with forest restoration

A family rooted in Land

The origin story is not one that fits neatly into the institutional conservation playbook.

The founders’ father was a Nigerian doctor who studied in Aberystwyth, Wales, married a German woman he met in the UK, returned to Nigeria, and spent his career in rural medical postings, Ijebu Ibu, Asejire, a dairy farm in Agege. He and his wife worked the land manually alongside their labourers.

The siblings grew up among cattle, crops and riverine forests. Farming was less a business model than a way of life.

“At that time, land was cheap,” Ladipo recalled. “Our parents worked it manually, with laborers.”

After their father’s death in 2003, the children discovered he had quietly invested in land near Ikoyi in Osun State. When they visited, what they saw alarmed them.

“There were sawmills everywhere,” says Ladipo. “Many sawmills. Because they were cutting all the trees, and people were selling them. We just saw this place, which still had trees.”

The family’s rationale was not initially scientific. It was ecological common sense, delivered with the directness of people who have watched patients suffer preventable diseases.

“If you remember the road coming in,” Ekundayo Abayomi said, gesturing toward a laterite track flanked by oil palms, “there were no tall forest trees left. Only bush and palm. There were many sawmills here. They had finished the trees.”

Nigeria has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. Between logging for export markets, subsistence farming and expanding settlements, primary forest cover has shrunk dramatically over the past three decades. In Osun and Oyo states, once-dense forests have fragmented into patches.

The Abayomi siblings made a decision that confounded some of their peers: they would buy more land not to farm it intensively, but to protect what forest remained.

At first, they acquired two parcels. The middle tract belonged to an elderly landowner who refused to sell. Only shortly before his death did he agree, allowing the siblings to stitch the three parcels into a contiguous 300-acre block.

They called it Emerald Forest Reserve.

At first, the idea was met with scepticism.

“People would ask, ‘Why are you doing this? You must be making money,’” she said, laughing. “When we said there is none, they would look at us like we are foolish.”

Read also: FG deploys over 7,000 forest guards to reclaim forests from terrorists, bandits, other criminal elements

From hobby to mission

What began as a family experiment in agroforestry gradually evolved into something larger.

“It began like a hobby for us,” said Professor Akin Abayomi, now Lagos State’s commissioner for health and chief executive of the Emerald Forest Reserve. “What we thought about in the beginning as agroforestry has now emerged as environmental protection.”

The land lies about 25 kilometres south of Ibadan, bordering the Osun River. Two seasonal streams dissect the property, forming an ecological corridor that supports amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Rocky outcrops and patches of farmland surround the forest, amplifying its value as a refuge.

Management has included reforestation with native species such as Albizia zygia, Antiaris toxicaria, Ceiba pentandra and Triplochiton scleroxylon, while non-native trees have been phased out. In buffer zones, oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), oranges (Citrus sinensis) and pineapple (Ananas comosus) are cultivated.

The siblings’ pitch to the surrounding community was straightforward: cutting every tree may yield short-term profit, but it erodes soil, intensifies drought and worsens flooding.

“When it rains, you will have flooding because the trees aren’t there to absorb the water,” Ladipo said. “Your forefathers knew what they were doing. Don’t follow everything mechanised. Let your trees grow.”

Negotiating with neighbours

Securing the forest required more than scientific surveys. It demanded diplomacy.

Illegal logging and hunting were early challenges. Chainsaws could be heard from deep within the canopy. Staff would track the noise and confront intruders, often with the support of local law enforcement.

“We don’t want to intimidate anybody,” Ekundayo Abayomi said. “We are strangers here. They are natives. So we have to be diplomatic.” Support from the local traditional ruler proved critical. The Bale of the area publicly endorsed the reserve’s protection, invoking both environmental logic and cultural authority.

Word spread that the forest was protected. Encroachments diminished.

Emerald also invested in community engagement: beekeeping workshops, textile and woodcraft training, and butterfly gardens to illustrate the importance of pollinators. Students from the University of Ibadan’s forestry department visit for fieldwork. Researchers study soil types, water quality and amphibian populations.

“By and by, they have bought into it,” Ladipo said.

For the Olukoyi of Ikoyi land, the reserve has become a symbol.

“We don’t even know when we are in summer or winter anymore,” he said, referencing shifting climate patterns. “To have this initiative in our community is a privilege. It connects to our economy and heritage.”

A model in miniature

The Emerald Forest Reserve is not large by conventional conservation standards. At 120 hectares, it is a fragment. But in a region where secondary rainforest has been reduced to isolated pockets, fragments are what remain, and fragments matter.

The reserve is bisected by two seasonal streams, the Aworin and Akinrin, that merge to form the Aduni River, which flows over the Iyaniwura waterfall into the Osun River. The Osun, a major perennial river dammed to supply water to surrounding communities, forms the western boundary. Its gallery forests create a habitat corridor connecting the reserve to the wider landscape.

The tree inventory reads like a catalogue of species the region has largely lost: African teak (Nauclea diderrichii), cork tree (Lophira alata), African mahogany (Afzelia africana), giant sterculia. Active reforestation is adding silkcotton, obeche and other native species to replace non-native growth.

“We see this place as a model,” Ekundayo Abayomi said. “Not for ourselves. For others to replicate.”

The siblings hope to expand through partnerships, encouraging reforestation of adjacent degraded lands, possibly sourcing seedlings from Emerald’s forest floor.

Their long-term vision includes stronger legal protections, perhaps even international recognition akin to UNESCO heritage sites.

“If something has international protection, it is harder to destroy,” Ladipo said. “We don’t know what will happen when we are not here.”

The question of succession

That uncertainty looms large.

The siblings’ children have grown up visiting the forest, but their futures are uncertain. Careers, marriages and urban life may pull them away.

“It takes maturity to recognise the importance of nature,” Ladipo said. “Children are thinking about their future.”

For now, Emerald’s continuity rests on institutional ties, MOUs with universities, partnerships with conservation bodies and the moral weight of its KBA status.

Back on the forest floor, a troop of mona monkeys crashes through branches overhead. The siblings pause, scanning the canopy.

Somewhere within it, the Ibadan malimbe calls, a sharp, ringing note that carries farther than its small body suggests.

Two decades ago, the Abayomis returned to the land they had known as children and found absence: trees felled, birds vanishing, ecosystems unravelling. Their response was not to retreat but to root themselves more deeply.

In a country where development pressures often trump conservation, Emerald Forest Reserve stands as a quiet counterpoint, proof that private initiative, anchored in science and community, can shift narratives.

The rare accolade may have put the forest on the world map. But for the family that protected it, the true measure lies closer to home: in shade restored, in rivers that still run, and in a bird that refused to disappear.

Dipo Oladehinde is a skilled energy analyst with experience across Nigeria's energy sector alongside relevant know-how about Nigeria’s macro economy.

He provides a blend of market intelligence, financial analysis, industry insight, micro and macro-level analysis of a wide range of local and international issues as well as informed technical rudiments for policy-making and private directions.

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