A London-based environmental, social, and governance (ESG) fund expressed profound relief Thursday after discovering that local women’s collectives in southeastern Nigeria are actively protecting the critically endangered gorillas the firm already sold as carbon offsets. The groups, operating in the villages of Ulom, Katabang, and Buanchor, were commended by European portfolio managers for unknowingly fulfilling the fund’s scope-three emissions pledges entirely for free.
According to a quarterly emissions filing submitted to the Verra carbon-credit registry, the Nigerian collectives’ successful physical efforts to safeguard the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary from poachers have generated roughly $14 million in proprietary offset value for Western corporate clients. Financial analysts noted that the women’s decision to take over the sanctuary’s failing male-led conservation programs fortuitously coincided with a major European airline needing to seamlessly zero out its winter aviation footprint.
It is always a structural risk when you monetize the preservation of a biodiversity hotspot before checking if anyone is actually preserving it, so we are absolutely thrilled with the localized resilience these ladies are demonstrating on the ground.
Harksley added that the women’s daily foot patrols to protect the Cross River gorilla and Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee represent a best-in-class synergy, allowing the fund to claim the conservation of a 100-square-kilometer sanctuary without the administrative burden of compensating the local community. The firm’s latest sustainability report officially classifies the women’s ongoing bodily risk in the jungle as a self-sustaining transition asset.
The carbon registry is expected to formally ratify the sanctuary's offset credits ahead of the COP29 summit, where the fund plans to leverage the collectives’ conservation success to underwrite a new TotalEnergies deepwater drilling lease.