Iroro Tanshi: The Woman Who Saved a Sanctuary

In a quiet stretch of forest in southern Nigeria, something remarkable happened. A species thought to have been lost to time called the short-tailed roundleaf bat was rediscovered. What makes this story powerful is not about the animal. It’s about the woman who refused to let that rediscovery become a silent footnote.

Meet Iroro Tanshi Africa’s winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2026, often called the “Green Nobel.”

Iroro Tanshi is the kind of conservationist who studies wildlife in proximity to it. She shows up boots on the ground, listening to both the forest and the people who live beside it. As a conservation ecologist, her work took her into the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, where she helped confirm the existence of a rare bat species once feared extinct. This news was only the beginning.

She noticed something troubling. It was not about time or predators but it was fire. Human-caused wildfires were creeping into the sanctuary, threatening to erase not just a species, but an entire ecosystem.

Instead of pointing fingers, as a true ecofeminist, Tanshi built bridges.

She worked with local farmers and communities to form fire brigades, neighbours protecting neighbours, land protecting life. Between 2022 and 2025, these grassroots teams responded to more than 70 fire outbreaks and prevented major destruction in the sanctuary.

This was conservation and collaboration in action. And it worked.

The Goldman Environmental Prize honours everyday environmental heroes across six continents, people who don’t wait for change, but create it.

Tanshi stands among them not just because she protected a species, but because she redefined what protection looks like: local, inclusive, and deeply human.

Her recognition also signals something bigger, Nigeria’s growing presence in global environmental leadership.

It’s easy to imagine environmental heroes as distant figures, scientists in documentaries or activists on global stages. Yet Tanshi’s story feels closer than that.

She reminds us that change may not always begin with massive funding or global attention. Sometimes, it starts with noticing something small; a bat, a spark, a pattern and refusing to ignore it.

And then, choosing to act.

In a world that often celebrates leaving, moving on, moving up, Iroro Tanshi chose to stay. To protect. To listen. To work with people instead of around them.

This choice earned her one of the world’s most prestigious environmental honours and it helped protect a fragile corner of the planet and proved that the most powerful solutions are often rooted in community.