Indigenous Languages can help Nigeria Confront Environmental Crisis, Experts say
By Unyime Okon
As environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and the effects of climate change intensify across Nigeria, environmentalists and academics are urging communities to look inward and recover indigenous language systems that once governed their relationship with land, forests and water.
The experts made the call on Thursday at a Wisdom Gathering organised by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) at the Eti Uwem Ecological Centre, Nkwot Ikot Nseyen, Ikono Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
The gathering, which brought together academics, environmentalists and community members, was organised under HOMEF’s 2026 focus, Justice Movement and Power for Socio-Ecological Transition (JUMP), with the theme, “Foundations of Language and Indigenous Philosophies for Socio-Ecological Justice.”
The discussions centred on a question often missing from environmental policy debates: what happens when a society loses not only its forests, rivers and farmland, but also the words, stories and traditional institutions through which those resources were understood and protected?
The participants agreed that the loss of indigenous languages is beyond a cultural concern. It can also mean the disappearance of ecological memories and practices that helped communities regulate their relationship with nature.
‘We must decolonise environmentalism’
Director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey, said attempts to address the environmental crisis would remain limited if they continued to rely on knowledge systems and concepts that helped legitimise the exploitation of nature.
He argued that language shapes how people understand themselves, their environment and what constitutes development.
“Primarily environmentalism is largely pursued within concepts that retain the very structures that created and sustains the polycrisis confronting the world today,” Mr Bassey said.
According to him, colonialism did not only extract land and labour from African societies but also transformed the way people understood their environment, culture and development.
He said HOMEF’s Wisdom Gatherings were designed to help “decolonise language and concepts” as part of efforts to promote socio-ecological transformation.
Mr Bassey said indigenous languages should not be reduced to cultural decoration in modern environmental conversations. “We cannot effectively reclaim environmentalism that respects our culture, world views and identity without decolonizing the language and structures of knowledge that incubates, births and sustains the crises,” he said.
He urged participants to interrogate some of the dominant expressions used in environmental discourse, including “green economy,” “global warming,” “corporate social responsibility” and “net-zero.”
He questioned the logic of assigning monetary value to nature under the guise of a green economy. “If we live a good life, we protect our environment, our neighbours,” he said. “Green economy means marketing the environment. You can’t get monetary value for life. You will destroy that environment.”
Mr Bassey also called for greater scrutiny of the terminology used to describe the climate crisis. “Instead of global warming, we should begin to talk about global burning,” he said.
‘Eti Uwem’, the idea of a good life
Mr Bassey said the name of the ecological centre where the gathering took place offered a practical insight into rhe kind of indigenous philosophy that could reshape environmental thinking.
“Eti Uwem,” an Ibibio expression, means “good life” or “good living,” he explained.
The concept, according to him, goes beyond material prosperity to include dignity, fairness, integrity, solidarity, respect and contentment, as well as harmonious relationships among people and between humans and nature.
He said the philosophy also recognises communal responsibility for resources, in contrast to economic systems that encourage speculation and the aggressive exploitation of nature.
Mr Bassey connected the idea to indigenous philosophies in other parts of the world, including “Sumak Kawsay” among the Kichwa people of Latin America, “Buen Vivir” and “Sankofa,” an Akan concept symbolised by a bird reaching backwards while moving forward.
He said Sankofa captures the importance of recovering useful knowledge from the past to build a sustainable future.
“We have to go back to get on the right path to be able to repair the widening fractures entrenched by extractivism and related biodiversity and livelihood losses and erosion of dignity,” he said.
“We may not do everything at once, but we can certainly do one thing at any one time. We will do something today. We will take a step on the ladder to our preferred future.”
‘Abasi Isong’, the sacredness of land
A professor of Geography and Natural Resources Management at the University of Uyo, Emmanuel Akpabio, said indigenous concepts could provide communities with a different understanding of their obligations to the environment.
He cited “Abasi Isong,” an Ibibio expression meaning “God of the land.”
Mr Akpabio said the concept conveyed the sacredness of land and could discourage the treatment of the environment as an unlimited source of materials for human consumption. “When we reduce everything that Abasi Isong has bestowed us with to material things that must be consumed, we lose value,” he said.
“When you see it as a place to be exploited, that’s when we have environmental problems.” He said some traditional practices had also functioned as informal conservation systems.
Mr Akpabio cited forests that were regarded as “evil forests” and consequently protected from human interference, as well as streams preserved through traditional beliefs. “There may be something deeper that we may not understand,” he said.
He also referred to traditional yam festivals and other cultural practices as examples of systems that maintained relationships between communities and their environment.
He charged communities not to abandon their cultural heritage wholesale in the name of modernisation but to identify practices that could complement contemporary conservation efforts.
“Do not shift ancient landmarks. Let’s see what is best from our culture and integrate it. Integrate our culture to our modern ways of preserving the environment,” he said.
Professor urges youths to return to farming
The chairman of the occasion and village head of Ikot Nseyen, Sylvester Akpan, said recovering indigenous knowledge should also include rebuilding traditional livelihoods, particularly agriculture.
Mr Akpan, a professor of Educational Technology and Library Science at the University of Uyo, said communities could reduce hunger and unemployment by making productive use of their land.
“It takes might and human beings to bring about development or effect changes. We can drive away hunger if we go back to what we used to do,” he said.
He called on community leaders to create incentives for young people to return to farming rather than become excessively dependent on political patronage. “Find a way of encouraging young people to make use of the available land. Forget giving attention to politics for a few cups of rice which will make you spend the whole day there. Let us encourage our youths to go back to the farm,” he said.
When disappearing word takes an ecosystem with it
One of the most striking aspects of the gathering was the examination of indigenous words as repositories of environmental memory.
During group discussions on “Language as Memory, Identity and Ecological Consciousness” and “Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge for Today’s Environmental Challenges,” participants explored how words can preserve information about how communities historically interacted with their surroundings.
A HOMEF member, Mfoniso Xeal, said losing indigenous words could mean losing the practices and memories embedded in them.
She cited the Ibibio expression, “Ukod anem ke ukpuk,” loosely translated as “palm wine is best served with a local calabash,” as an example of how language can preserve knowledge of locally available and environmentally friendly alternatives.
Participants also examined “Okoiyak,” the indigenous name for a fishing field before the area became known as the Stubbs Creek Forest Reserve.
They argued that retaining such names could preserve historical knowledge about the ecological and livelihood functions of particular places.
The participants blamed the disappearance of the name for the weakened understanding of the younger generations about the area’s historical importance as a fishing ground and ecological asset, leaving it easier to perceive the land simply as undeveloped space available for other forms of development.
Another concept discussed was “Ndon,” meaning a community reserve.
At Ikot Nseyen, participants cited “Ndon Uwem” as an example of communal land ownership in which land is collectively held rather than fragmented among individuals.
They said the arrangement had helped prevent the land from being sold piecemeal and contributed to the preservation of its biodiversity.
The discussions underscored a central concern of the gathering: environmental conservation may not endure if the cultural memory that once gave communities reasons to protect their surroundings disappears.
Participants consequently called for systematic documentation and preservation of indigenous languages, ecological terms and community practices across Akwa Ibom.
They urged families and communities to pass such knowledge to younger generations through storytelling, folklore, books, oral history and other forms of documentation.