One green shoot at a time: the women restoring mangrove forests in the oil-ravaged Niger delta

Martha Agbani, centre, with some of the women planters she has trained in mangrove restoration techniques in the Niger delta, an area devastated by five decades of oil pollution. Photograph: Valentine Benjamin

A toxic landscape was familiar to Martha Agbani when she was growing up – the smell of crude oil in the air, rivers running black and trees dying on the banks. In Ogoniland, in Nigeria’s oil-exploited Niger delta, Agbani saw the spills rot away the mangrove forests and destroy the livelihoods of communities around her.

Now, she is training women to plant them back – one fragile green shoot at a time.