ORIMEDU, NIGERIA — The accelerating Orimedu coastal erosion is rapidly destroying homes and devastating local livelihoods, forcing communities along Nigeria’s shoreline to live in constant fear of the encroaching sea.
Residents in these coastal regions are struggling to cope with a combination of heavy rainfall and unstable sandy soils. To bring attention to the crisis, local fishermen recently gathered for a traveling exhibition backed by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). The showcase utilizes photographs and landscape designs to illustrate the escalating dangers of sea level rise and coastal degradation throughout the Gulf of Guinea.
A representative involved in the documentation effort explained the project’s grassroots methodology: “We spend a lot of time in communities like this along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea documenting what people have told us about the lived realities of coastal erosion. And what we have here in the book exhibition is a summary of that research and presented in a way that is accessible to a general audience.”
The Orimedu—or Oru—coastline is currently experiencing severe land degradation. A visual survey of the beach reveals how perilously close the creeping shoreline and moored fishing boats are to residential structures.
Highlighting the psychological toll of the environmental crisis, one local resident shared, “We sleep in fear and wake up in fear because we have no idea when the sea will take over this community. The sea gets closer to us every day.”
Beyond Nigeria, the exhibition features recent imagery of vulnerable coastal towns in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It also displays landscape architecture designs developed during a comprehensive three-year research project focused on helping communities adapt to climate change.
As part of these adaptation efforts, locals are learning practical, nature-based mitigation techniques. One community member noted that the initiative “taught us how to prevent by planting coconuts and grasses that it will slow down the erosion to come towards where we are.”
According to a spokesperson for the design initiative, the exhibition investigates how landscape architecture can assist Gulf of Guinea communities in combating sea level rise, urban flooding, and coastal erosion. He emphasized that these resilience strategies are deeply informed by climate science, public participation, and innovative design.
