Landscapes of Fear: Turning Nigeria’s Forest Hideouts into Assets

Tolulope Oke

How strategic landscape planning and sustained human presence can strengthen Nigeria’s security architecture

Every time another kidnapping makes headlines, another community comes under attack, or fresh reports of bandit activity surface, the national response follows a familiar script: deploy more security personnel, launch new operations, set up additional checkpoints, and bring in more weapons.

These measures are necessary. But we must also ask a question that rarely enters the conversation:

What if part of Nigeria’s security challenge is a landscape challenge?

To many, linking insecurity to Landscape Architecture may sound unusual. Yet the connection runs deep.

For too long, we have treated our forests and natural areas as empty, untouched spaces far removed from national life. But landscapes are never truly vacant. When people, research, conservation, recreation, tourism, and legitimate economic activities do not fill a place, something else eventually will.

Across many parts of Nigeria, forests are now frequently mentioned in conversations about kidnapping, banditry, and insurgency. The issue is not the forest itself, but how these landscapes have been neglected, poorly managed, or disconnected from broader systems of human activity and territorial presence.

Nigeria is losing its forest cover at an alarming rate. Reports suggest the country has lost a significant portion, in some estimates 50 to 80 percent, of its original forests due to logging, farming expansion, and land conversion. Forest reserves, which on paper cover about 10 million hectares or over 10 percent of our land area, often exist more in name than in reality because of encroachment and weak protection.

Degraded and unmanaged landscapes can create conditions that may be exploited by criminal groups, particularly where governance and territorial control are weak.

Security is fundamentally about presence, visibility, and control of space. Criminal groups thrive where movement is difficult to monitor and isolation is high.

Active landscapes change that equation.

Research creates movement. Tourism creates traffic. Conservation programmes create patrol systems. Community stewardship creates ownership. Youth employment creates legitimate occupation. Infrastructure creates access and monitoring. Collectively, these are not merely environmental interventions. They are mechanisms for increasing territorial presence.

The argument is not that tourism alone stops insecurity, nor that forests should become urban developments. The argument is that landscapes that are consistently occupied, managed, and valued become harder to exploit.

A forest that regularly receives researchers, tourists, rangers, and local communities becomes a landscape with greater movement, visibility, and territorial presence, making long term concealment more difficult.

Nigeria can apply this thinking. As a Landscape Architect, I believe we must integrate landscape strategies into our long term security approach. This is not about replacing nature with concrete. It is about transforming abandoned landscapes into actively managed and strategically occupied spaces.

Examples already exist. Lekki Conservation Centre attracts thousands while generating economic value. Obudu Mountain Resort and Yankari National Park show how landscapes can drive employment and visibility. Community stewardship in the Ekuri forests of Cross River State proves local people can protect and benefit from their environment. In contrast, parts of Rugu Forest have repeatedly featured in discussions around bandit activities and security operations.

The practical question is this: How do we turn vulnerable landscapes into occupied ones?

We can start by establishing ranger and monitoring networks, creating research stations and field centres, expanding secured eco tourism routes, strengthening community stewardship programmes, and generating conservation based jobs for local youth. These measures would increase daily human presence while delivering economic returns.

National security is not defended only at checkpoints. Sometimes it is strengthened by how thoughtfully we plan, occupy, and care for the landscapes we call our own.

With sustained and legitimate activity, places once associated with concealment can become places defined by presence, visibility, and accountability.

You cannot abandon a landscape and then be surprised when something else occupies it.

Author Bio:

Dr. Atumye Amos Alao is a Landscape Architect and Urban Planner, President of the Society of Landscape Architects of Nigeria, and Secretary General of the International Federation of Landscape Architects Africa Region. He advocates for Landscape Architecture as a strategic profession for environmental resilience and sustainable development.