Environmental Rights Action (ERA) was founded 1993 as an environmental pressure group, and joined FoE in 1996.

The organization is dedicated to the defence of human ecosystems in terms of human rights, and to the promotion of environmentally responsible governmental, commercial, community and individual practice in Nigeria through the empowerment of local people.

Environmental Rights Action became well known to Friends of the Earth members when its Chair, Nnimmo Bassey, was imprisoned by the Nigerian government as he left the country to attend a 1996 West African Friends of the Earth meeting. The group works locally, nationally and globally on the following campaigns:

• Forest and Development,
• Community Resource Centers, Oilwatch,
• Energy and Climate Change,
• Savanah,
• Dams and Desertification,

and runs an Environmental Information Service.

Much of its efforts have concentrated on multinational oil companies and the protection of the Niger delta