00:01Deep inside Nigeria's Okumu National Park, the fight to save one of West Africa's last remaining rainforest reserves
00:09is being led by unlikely guardians.
00:13Agbaibo used to be a poacher and illegal logger, but now he's become a ranger
00:17and he uses his knowledge of the forest on his patrols to protect the wildlife he once destroyed.
00:24I was being logging, this logging we are doing before, we are carrying wood to Lagos, to supply, to ground,
00:33to have life and get money for ourselves, to flesh ourselves at that time.
00:39So when you came, we caught, we transferred them to the river, to Lagos,
00:46then we used this summit to show them, to get some money for ourselves, our family.
00:56When I became a ranger, I know that there's anything called a forest and importance of wood and wildlife.
01:05He's part of a growing ranger force recruited from within the community,
01:09working to combat deforestation, wildlife trafficking and illegal logging.
01:20Training for the new recruits is intense.
01:24They undergo physical drills and forest survival exercises to prepare for patrols that can last days.
01:31Precious is one of only three women here.
01:34I see some farmers, loggers, poachers killing the animals, cutting the trees.
01:40So I made up my mind with my sister to become a ranger and to protect the natural resources just
01:47for future use.
01:48The conservation effort is supported by Africa Nature Investors,
01:52which partners with the government to manage and protect the park for the next 30 years.
02:00Communities who are forced to go into logging or poaching of animals or clearing of the forest for farmland because
02:07of poverty.
02:08And unless you address the poverty of the communities, you will never give them an incentive to help protect the
02:14forest.
02:15So to protect the forest, we employ people from the communities and they're the ones who catch illegal poachers who
02:24are killing the animals.
02:25They catch illegal loggers who are destroying the forest or they catch people who are cutting down the forest to
02:31establish illegal farms.
02:34And to date, we have trained 28 rangers from the local communities, but those 28 rangers were not enough.
02:42Involving members of the community and paying them a living wage has also changed their sense of responsibility.
02:50Before, this orphaned baby elephant would probably have been killed for meat, but it was rescued and handed over to
03:00the rangers to be looked after.
03:02For Agbaibo, the poacher turned ranger, the baby elephant is more than a wild animal. For him, the animal is
03:11now deep down and personal.
03:15When I came here, they give the elephant my name. So any time when they call, he will come. If
03:23anywhere is, as you hear the name of Agbaibo, he will run closer to me. So I feel so very
03:30out of that aspect.
03:33Conservationists here say protecting Okumu forest is not just about saving trees or wildlife. It's about protecting livelihoods, combating climate
03:42change and proving that transformation is possible both for forests and for people.
03:49For Agbaibo, every patrol is a chance at redemption, from taking from the forest to defending it.
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