Epistemic Justice and the Marginalisation of African Forest Knowledge in International Conservation Frameworks: A Critical Analysis

International conservation frameworks governing Nigerian forests, including REDD-plus, the Convention on Biological Diversity's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Forest Stewardship Council certification standards, rest on epistemological foundations that privilege Western scientific knowledge forms while systematically marginalising African indigenous and local knowledge, with material consequences for both conservation effectiveness and social justice outcomes. This study conducts a critical theoretical analysis of epistemic injustice in international forest conservation frameworks as applied in Nigerian contexts, drawing on feminist epistemology, decolonial theory, and the sociology of scientific knowledge. The empirical component combined critical discourse analysis of 84 policy documents and scientific publications with ethnographic fieldwork in four Nigerian forest communities in Kogi, Taraba, Niger, and Cross River States. Ethnographic data documented the content and institutional treatment of indigenous forest knowledge in contemporary conservation interventions. Discourse analysis identified the epistemic mechanisms through which scientific knowledge claims were legitimated and indigenous knowledge claims were systematically discounted or instrumentalised without full inclusion. Findings demonstrate three recurring epistemic injustice mechanisms: testimonial injustice in formal knowledge validation processes, hermeneutical injustice arising from the absence of indigenous conceptual frameworks in conservation design tools, and contributory injustice in the co-production of monitoring data. Epistemic injustice was shown to have direct material consequences, including conservation displacement of indigenous communities and the loss of adaptive knowledge relevant to climate-resilient forest management. The study proposes an epistemic justice framework for reforming knowledge governance in Nigerian forest conservation and contributes original theoretical refinements to epistemic justice theory in environmental governance contexts. Keywords: epistemic justice, indigenous knowledge, conservation frameworks, decolonial theory, Nigeria