NCF Unveils 1bn Indigenous Trees Plan, Targets Guinness World Record

Bennett Oghifo

The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) has unveiled an ambitious plan to plant one billion indigenous trees in a single day, as part of a nationwide drive to restore Nigeria’s rapidly declining forest cover and strengthen food security, climate resilience and community livelihoods.

The initiative, announced by former Vice President and NCF President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, at the 2026 NCF Legacy Green Ball held in honour of elder statesman, Izoma Philip Asiodu, CFR, CON, is also being positioned as an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for tree planting.

Osinbajo said the proposed exercise would involve the federal and state governments, civil society organisations, schools, communities and volunteers across the country, with Guinness World Records expected to participate in verifying the exercise from the planning stage.

He said the project would focus specifically on indigenous Nigerian tree species, rather than indiscriminate planting, stressing that the initiative was designed to restore ecosystems while leaving a lasting environmental legacy.

“We decided that we are going to do this: one billion trees, one billion trees in one day,” Osinbajo declared, noting that Nigeria could not afford to be less ambitious than other countries in confronting deforestation and climate change.

He cited Ethiopia’s reported large-scale tree-planting campaigns as evidence that massive coordinated national mobilisation was possible, noting that Ethiopia had previously recorded a one-day planting figure of 385 million trees and was targeting an even higher figure.

According to him, the Nigerian initiative would require extensive preparation and participation across the country.

“The way that this is done, it can’t be done by those of us sitting at the middle or at the top. Of course, the government has a major role. So all the nations, the federal government, both federal and state governments… civil society organisations, schools all over the country will be involved,” he said.

The announcement came against the backdrop of a stark warning by the Executive Director of Sustainability and Conservation Education for Rural Areas (SCERA), Dr. Moses Modey Ama, who said Nigeria’s forest crisis was undermining food security, community resilience and national security.

Ama, a former Director of Forestry in the Federal Department of Forestry and former National Coordinator of the Nigeria REDD+ Programme, said less than 10 per cent of Nigeria’s original forest cover remains, while the country is estimated to be losing about 400,000 hectares of forest annually.

He said satellite data from Global Forest Watch indicated that Nigeria lost about 1.6 million hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2025, releasing an estimated 890 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

“Nigeria now has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world,” Ama said, attributing the crisis to agricultural expansion, illegal logging, dependence on fuelwood and charcoal, urban expansion, weak forestry institutions and inadequate enforcement of environmental laws.

He, however, warned that the crisis was no longer solely an environmental problem, noting that degraded and poorly governed forests in parts of the North-west had also become hideouts for armed groups.

Ama therefore called for a shift from ceremonial tree planting to measurable and sustained forest restoration, arguing that “what gets measured gets done, and what gets paid for gets done faster.”

He urged the government, private sector, development partners and communities to invest in forest restoration as critical infrastructure for food, water, security and economic prosperity.

According to him, Nigeria’s challenge is not a shortage of ambitious commitments but a delivery gap, pointing to the country’s pledge under AFR100 and the Bonn Challenge to restore four million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030.

He said the latest national figure presented by government in 2022 showed that about 555,000 hectares had been restored—roughly 14 per cent of the target—with less than four years remaining to the 2030 deadline.

Ama called for greater investment in community forest enterprises, agroforestry, clean cooking, forest governance and results-based carbon finance, stressing that restoration programmes would succeed only when communities had secure rights, livelihoods and a fair share of the benefits.

“Restoring forests is not charity. It is infrastructure. Infrastructure for food. For water. For peace. And for a prosperity we can all share,” he said.

Osinbajo said the one-billion-tree initiative would build on the legacy of Asiodu, whom he described as a long-standing advocate for environmental protection and sustainable development.

He said the NCF would work with stakeholders to ensure that the project became a credible, verifiable national environmental intervention.

“We are going to involve all indigenous (trees), everyone, including us, to ensure that we are able to do this and to do it as efficiently as possible,” Osinbajo said.

He added that participants in the exercise would have the opportunity to be recognised as Guinness World Record holders if the initiative met the organisation’s verification requirements.

The initiative, he said, would ultimately seek to mobilise Nigerians around what he described as an “assured one billion indigenous trees legacy.”