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ABSTRACT
The novelty claims in carbon forestry often obscure the complex histories and the colonial entanglements of carbon forest socioecologies. This paper argues that the conditions of possibility of carbon forestry in ‘Nigeria’s last rainforest’ are tightly linked to the uneven colonial production of forests across Southern Nigeria. Drawing on archival research, ethnographic fieldwork and analysis of program documents and academic literature, the paper unsettles claims of novelty in Nigeria’s carbon forestry by demonstrating the material continuity between colonial forestry and carbon forestry. Focusing on the development of colonial forestry in Southern Nigeria under British colonial rule, the paper traces the coloniality of scientific forestry as a form of environmental rule, and its entanglements with imperial capitalism and presumptions of racial hierarchy. If the success of scientific forestry in Southern Nigeria meant the draining of Nigeria’s forests as timber export, its failure in Cross River paradoxically produced ‘Nigeria’s last rainforest,’ a literal ‘colonial residue’ . In colonial forestry, as in contemporary carbon forestry, a reductionist knowledge of forests, capitalist interests and a racialized global division of labor all interact in consequential ways. The paper concludes that decolonizing Nigeria’s forestry is a precondition for saving its ‘last rainforest.’
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Notes
1. REDD+ stands for Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus the role of sustainable management of forests and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
2. It should also be noted that some elements of scientific forestry had been earlier borrowed from non-European peoples (e.g., the Taungya System which was native to China and Southeast Asia) and scientific forestry would persist across many post-colonial contexts not only due to its deeply entrench structure but also due to its intentional adoption by postcolonial forest managers.
3. Sir Ralph Moor was the first commissioner and consul-general of the Niger Coast Protectorate (NCP) until 1900 when NCP merged with the former territories of the Royal Niger Company, forming the Southern Nigeria Protectorate of which Moor became the High Commissioner before retiring in 1903.
4. The term ‘natives’ refers to the way colonial documents referred to the general African populations domiciled in the territories of reference.
5. Lord Frederick Lugard would later articulate this mandate fully into what he later called The Dual Mandate in his 1922 book.
6. Despatch from the Colonial Office to Ralph Moor dated 12 November, 1902. Kew National Archive.
number CO. 879/69/661/17 (as cited by O, Citation1985)
7. Annual Report on the Forest Administration of Southern Nigeria, 1913: A paper laid on the Table of the Legislative Council on the 14th Day of December 1914. National Archives Ibadan, File Number: CSO/9/3/1279, p1.
8. Forest Policy for Nigeria, 1945 National Archives Calabar, File Number: CADIST 3/1/230, p30.
9. Annual Report on the Forest Administration in Nigeria, 1948 – 1949, National Archives Enugu, p3 & p8.
10. Forest Policy in the Eastern Region, 1949 National Archives Calabar, File Number: CADIST 3/3/603, p3.
11. F.S. Collier, Memorandum on forest policy in the Eastern Region, 4th April, 1949. National Archives Calabar File Number: CADIST 3/3/603, pp 40–41.
12. F.S. Collier, Memorandum on forest policy in the Eastern Region, 4th, April, 1949. National Archives Calabar File Number: CADIST 3/3/603, p.40.
13. The botanical names of each of the species mentioned here are as follows: Iroko – Milicia excelsa; Obeche – Triplochiton scleroxylon; African Mahogany – Khaya senegalensis; Sapele Mahogany – Entandrophragma cylindricum; African Walnut – Lovoa trichilioides; Ebony – Diospyros sp.; Teak – Tectona grandis
14. Major F.M. Oliphant was a British forest economist for the Colonial Office. He had been commissioned by a coalition of timber interests in the UK to carry out a forestry tour of Nigeria with the aim of improving British commercial exploitation there.
15. ‘Oba of Benin’ is the title of the highly influential ruler of the Benin Kingdom in Southern Nigeria.
16. Annual Report on Forest Administration of Nigeria 1938, National Archives Enugu. p12.
17. By 1924 the forest administration of Southern Nigeria had been split into the Eastern and the Western Provinces which almost spatially coincide with the subsequent regionalization of Southern Nigeria into Western and Eastern regions in 1954 (See ).
18. F.S. Collier, Memorandum on forest policy in the Eastern Region, 4th, April, 1949. National Archives Calabar File Number: CADIST 3/3/603, p40–41.
19. ibid.
20. Annual Report on Forest Administration of Nigeria 1947–48, Available from the National Archives Enugu, Enugu Nigeria p4.
21. Annual Report on Forest Administration of Nigeria 1947–48, Available from the National Archives Enugu, Enugu Nigeria p 3.
22. Annual Report on Forest Administration of Nigeria 1948–49, Available from the National Archives Enugu, Enugu Nigeria p 4.
23. Annual Report on Forest Administration of Nigeria 1948–49, National Archives Enugu, p.3