Overview 

The Okomu Forest Reserve includes the Okomu National Park, one of Nigeria's most biodiverse and ecologically significant areas. Home to endangered species, such as the white-throated monkey and forest elephants, the landscape is a key producer of palm oil, cocoa, cassava rubber and pineapple. 

The reserve is located in Edo state, Nigeria’s leading producer of oil palm. Oil palm plantations, predominantly operated by the Okomu Oil Palm company, represent 16% (9,300 hectares) of land use in the area. Agriculture is the major economic activity of communities in the reserve, with cocoa production having the highest net value.  The growth of cocoa and oil palm plantations, along with logging and poaching, have led to significant deforestation. However, there is significant potential to regain valuable ecosystem function given that there is still 42% forest cover in the reserve.  

NISCOPS - Creating positive impact for people, planet and progress 

The National Initiative for Sustainable and Climate Smart Oil Palm Smallholders (NISCOPs) - a partnership between IDH and Solidaridad - brings together key stakeholders to sustainably manage the landscape.  The forest reserve defines the boundary for the NISCOPS landscape. The program supports smallholders to implement climate-smart agriculture and facilitates access to markets - improving livelihoods, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, and boosting climate change resilience.   

Climate Change and deforestation  

The palm oil sector remains a significant contributor to climate change in Nigeria. Climate change threatens smallholder incomes with extreme weather events, erratic rainfall patterns and rising temperatures affecting yields, oil quality and crude palm oil prices.  However, the Okomu reserve sequesters a significant amount of carbon, contributing to global climate change mitigation.  

Agricultural expansion has been the primary driver of deforestation in the landscape. Demarcation of communities/settlements in the reserve, and the national park, is underway to help manage land use and cut deforestation. Forest guards have also been provided with support and equipment. Through collaborative efforts in the landscape the goal to reduce deforestation in the reserve by 5% by 2028 has already been exceeded.  

Sustainable land management 

In 2024, the Okomu Management Plan was launched. Whilst NISCOPS focuses predominantly on palm oil produced, the solutions based, landscape approach aims to impact the production of more than one agricultural commodity.   

The project aims to bring 20,000 hectares of agricultural land under sustainable land management practices. In 2025 a total area of 46,500 hectares of forest was under sustainable governance and 22,000 hectares was under sustainable forest management. 

Improving livelihoods

The Okomu Outgrower scheme, led by the Okomu Oil Palm company, trains smallholder farmers in modern and oil palm best practices. It also provides access to farm services and finance. A monthly price mechanism has been implemented between the Okomu Oil Company and farmer co-operatives. By 2025 over a billion Naira (about 623K EUR) worth of revenue was generated by smallholders through the scheme.

Smallholders now supply 20% of the Okomu Oil Palm company’s Fresh Fruit Bunches.The company plans to integrate at least 5000 oil palm smallholder farmers into their supply chain and support them to become RSPO certified. The first group registered with RSPO for certification includes an initial 400 farmers. 

Empowering women and youth 

To date the Okomu Outgrower Scheme has supported 2840 women and young people in palm oil retailing and service provision. Of the 7,500 smallholder farmers the program will reach, 15% are expected to be women and 10% will be young people. The scheme also supports self-help groups, especially women-focused, agribusiness clusters, to become registered farmer cooperatives.  

The program aims to diversidy incomes by increasing far income outside of oil palm production. A beekeeping enterprise has been established to provide a guaranteed market for trained and potential honeybee farmers. Initial findings showed a 60% colony establishment rate in a landscape new to honeybees and an average 10,000 Naira worth of honey per farmer.