Nigeria is at a tipping point. Decades of unregulated mining and oil extraction, runaway deforestation, unchecked urbanisation, and weak environmental policy have pushed the country into overlapping social and ecological crises. Forests are disappearing, the Niger Delta is drowning in oil spills, desertification is spreading across the north, floods are displacing entire communities, and farmers are watching harvests collapse. The Nigeria Socio-Ecological Alternatives Charter — Charter of Demand (Youth Edition) is a national response to that reality.
Published by the Nigeria Socio-Ecological Alternatives Charter (NSAC) in collaboration with the Safe Space Development Foundation (SHADEF) and The Young Environmentalists Network (TYEN), this 2025 Youth Edition is adapted from the original Charter by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).
What the Charter Covers
The Charter is anchored on five core principles: ecological justice, people’s participation, sustainability, accountability, and solidarity and partnership. From there, it works through the major ecological crises facing Nigeria and lays out the people’s demands for each:
- Drought and desertification in northern states, where desert-like features now cover over 63% of Nigeria’s landmass
- Floods, the country’s most frequent disaster, and the government’s failure to move beyond weak emergency relief
- Deforestation, with forest cover dropping from 40% in the 1960s to less than 10% today
- Water rights, treating water as a human right rather than a commodity
- Biodiversity conservation and a national shift toward agroecology
- Mining and solid minerals, a sector contributing just 0.3% of GDP at enormous ecological and human cost
- Energy transition, framed as a just, people-centred shift away from fossil fuels
- Oil and gas extraction in the Niger Delta, including ecological audits, divestment accountability, and ending gas flaring
The People’s Demands
Across each issue, the Charter sets out concrete demands — from a moratorium on destructive mining and Free, Prior and Informed Consent for affected communities, to a binding deadline for ending routine gas flaring, recognition of water and nature as rights-bearing, removal of patent rights from plant seeds, and a Divestment Accountability Framework that keeps liability with oil majors as they exit the Niger Delta.
Why It Matters
This Charter is a living document — a vision for a Nigeria where nature is respected, communities control their resources, and everyone enjoys clean air, water, and a healthy environment. It is built for young people, grassroots defenders, and community activists who will carry these demands into policy spaces, classrooms, and community organising.
“We need radical change. This Charter offers a plan to confront these problems and build a future where nature is respected, communities control their resources, everyone enjoys clean air, water, and a healthy environment.”
Download the Charter
Get your copy of the Nigeria Socio-Ecological Alternatives Charter — Charter of Demand (Youth Edition) and share it with your community, classroom, or organisation.
For more information, contact SHADEF at info@shadef.org or HOMEF at home@homef.org.