A quiet but increasingly expanding partnership between government agencies, companies and non-governmental organisations is providing a more viable and sustainable for the preservation of Nigeria's biodiversity. examines how collaborative efforts are driving national agenda on gender inclusion, climate action and sustainability
At dawn in Okomu National Park, the forest breathes slowly as mist clings to towering trees as birds fly freely above the canopy of green vegetation. On the human side, patrol teams start each day prepared to protect one of Nigeria's last remaining strongholds of biodiversity.
Few years ago, scenes like this were overshadowed by illegal logging, tension with host communities, and dwindling wildlife. Today, it is a different story in Okomu, one of the few remaining forest elephant landscapes in Nigeria.
The new rhythm is one of peace and harmony with nature along with drums defined by community-driven ranger recruitment, renewed law enforcement, and a historic rescue of a baby forest elephant, with the widely reported rescue causing unbridled excitement in the Nigerian conservation sector.
At the centre of this transformation is a growing partnership between the African Nature Investors (ANI) Foundation and the National Park Service (NPS), a collaboration that proves conservation works best when local people are empowered, rather than excluded.
With ranger-led enforcement as one of the cardinal points of its operations, ANI Foundation recently undertook the recruitment of 40 new rangers to strengthen law-enforcement operations at Okomu National Park. Responding to that call, nearly 200 young men and women from communities surrounding the park turned up for screening, about four times the number recorded during the last recruitment drive three years earlier.
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"For us, that turnout was the strongest signal that something fundamental had changed," Peter Abanyam, ANI Project Manager at Okomu, stated. "Three years ago, we struggled to get even 40 people to show up. We had to postpone recruitment and call again. This time, they came willingly, close to 200 of them," Abanyam added.
The surge was not just about numbers. It reflected a shift in mindset: conservation was no longer seen as an external imposition, but as a shared responsibility. According to Abanyam, ANI deliberately redesigned its recruitment model to prioritise host communities, rather than sourcing rangers from distant locations.
"We wanted rangers who have emotional connections to the land," he explained, with that belief grounded in the fact that when you recruit from the communities, these are people protecting their own future; their forests, water and heritage. Despite funding constraints that limited intake to 40 rangers, many applicants met the demanding physical and technical criteria, a testament to the growing commitment among local youth.
The emergence of women in ranger-led law enforcement, an area traditionally dominated by men, represents another remarkable outcome of the recruitment exercise as six women applied during the cycle as three passed the rigorous tests.
Abanyam said: "Conservation is not gender-specific. Protection is for everybody. In fact, women often show greater perseverance and compassion, which are essential qualities for wildlife protection".
He recalled previous recruitment cycles in which female candidates outperformed their male counterparts in physical endurance tests.
The women who qualified went on patrols, undertook training, and carried out enforcement duties alongside their male colleagues, with accommodation and welfare, however, based on gender-sensitive considerations.
Speaking about the current state of things, Osaze Lawrence, the Conservator of Park (CP) at the park said the transformation did not happen overnight.
"When I assumed duty in 2022, we had serious challenges, especially regarding illegal logging. It was around that time the partnership with the African Nature Investors (ANI) Foundation. They trained about 40 rangers to support the existing workforce, and together we began to reclaim the park," Lawrence said.
Admittedly, enforcement alone was not enough. What truly changed the dynamic was deep community engagement through meetings, dialogues, and livelihood programmes that redefined the relationship between the park and its neighbours. "We made the communities understand that the park belongs to them," Lawrence stated, noting that hostility disappears once people are made to have a sense of ownership.
Lawrence, an indigene of Edo State, attributed the achievements, including the partnership with ANI Foundation to the leadership of the NPS led by Conservator-General, Dr. Ibrahim Goni and Balarabe Musa, Nigeria's Minister of Environment as well as the state government.
According to him, through partnerships with other NGOs, community leaders and others, residents were trained in beekeeping, agroforestry, and alternative livelihoods to reduce dependence on illegal forest activities. Today, Lawrence estimates that about 70% of park employees come from surrounding communities, reinforcing local buy-in.
On November 30, 2025, workers on a routine patrol at Okomu Oil Palm Company, located some kilometres from the park in Edo State noticed a figure wandering alone among the trees in Extension 1 of the plantation. At first, they thought it was a stray calf from a local livestock herd but as they drew closer, they saw it was a frail, dehydrated elephant calf, barely two months old.
Struggling to stand and its ears drooping from exhaustion, the discovery of the baby elephant sent shockwaves through the conservation sector in Edo State and beyond as no one in Nigeria - be it in parks, among researchers or wildlife responders has ever rescued a forest elephant calf that lived long enough to make the effort worth it.
According to Lawrence, Conservator of Park, officials of the Okomu Oil Palm kept the animal, gave it water and called on the authorities of the immediately. "When we arrived with African Nature Investors (ANI) Foundation, we picked it up and we made an attempt to reunite it with its herd," he said.
After retrieving the calf, the conservator of the park said rangers went deep into the elephant home range, guided only by faint noises which they believed came from a nearby herd. They placed the baby gently on the forest floor; hoping instinct would lead it back.
"At first, it walked some metres into the wild; we stepped back to see if the family would find him but after two hours, there was no sign. Later, a bike rider called to say the small elephant had wandered onto the main road again."
This was when the heartbreaking truth that the calf's mother was gone and the reunion attempt had failed dawned on them. At that point, it became clear that returning it to the wild would mean certain death - predation, hunger, dehydration, or poaching.
"So, we agreed the only humane thing was to rescue it, rehabilitate it, stabilise it, and prepare it for a future return to the wild," he said.
The calf was moved to ANI's R1 Base Camp, an operational facility near the park headquarters and a makeshift rehabilitation space was prepared, a quiet, isolated, space close enough to the forest to reduce stress from human presence.
Within 48 hours, the calf's condition deteriorated, according to Dr Faith Amune, a veterinarian with Okomu Oil Palm Company. "He had a very thin line between life and death. We were not prepared for it, but duty is duty; we administered emergency medication, and honestly, on that first Tuesday (Dec. 2), it looked like we were losing him," she said.
The crisis triggered an unprecedented collaboration. ANI quickly created an SOS WhatsApp group that linked wildlife experts within and outside Nigeria. Messages flew across time zones through symptoms, photos, hydration levels and recommended milk formulas. Responders realised they needed hands-on expertise.
When wildlife rescue technical consultant Liz O'Brien, a UK-born elephant rehabilitation specialist based in Zambia, received the alert, she immediately booked the next flight to Nigeria.
"I didn't just come to save this calf," O'Brien said. "I came to build capacity. Africa cannot depend on outsiders flying in every time. The real solution is to build capacity locally. If they learn how to handle this one, they will manage the next,'' she stated.
With over 15 years of experience across Africa, O'Brien worked alongside local vets and rangers, redesigning feeding formulas, correcting hydration patterns, and transferring rare, hands-on expertise. She has spent 15 years working across Africa in countries like Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Burkina Faso, specialising in orphaned elephants.
On arrival, O'Brien assessed the calf and immediately began working side by side with local vets, rangers, keepers, and park managers. She redesigned the milk formula, corrected hydration patterns, and began teaching techniques that normally take years to learn through field exposure.
"For vets like us, who rarely encounter elephants, this was priceless," another veterinarian, Dr Adedolapo Oke, said. "She has decades of experience; you could see immediately that she knows exactly what to do, Oke added.
Peter Abanyam, Project Manager for ANI at Okomu, said for years, elephants avoided the eastern corridor of the park because of human pressure. "But recently they have started crossing again. It shows that protection efforts are working," he said.
As far as he was concerned, the baby elephant's rescue symbolises a larger conservation shift: local communities are no longer passive observers; they are now participants.
For Lawrence, the lesson from Okomu is clear: when conservation is community-led, results follow. And while Nigeria has expanded from seven to seventeen national parks, reflecting growing awareness of biodiversity protection a lot still needs to be done.
Nigeria's elephant population has declined drastically over the past century. From tens of thousands, forest elephants have disappeared from most states due to logging, poaching, and habitat fragmentation.
Today, the Okomu-Omo-Osse landscape hosts the last viable population of critically endangered African forest elephants in southern Nigeria.
To wildlife veterinarians, elephant calf care is one of the hardest tasks in the world and the calf will need specialised milk for two to three years, constant monitoring, hydration therapy, environmental enrichment, and minimal human contact to avoid imprinting.
For Nigeria, the experience is historic.
Dr Abdulrahman Adam, a wildlife vet who flew in from Bauchi to learn on the field, said it was his first elephant calf case. "In Nigeria, this has never happened before. What I learned here, you cannot get in any classroom," Adam said.
For Lawrence, Abanyam, the veterinarians, and the communities, the calf has become more than an animal; it is a symbol of what collective action can achieve.
"This is a first for Nigeria, and it shows that when the community, NGOs, government and experts come together, wildlife can survive," Lawrence said.