This study examines environmental protest images in Ayetoro, Ondo State, Nigeria. It investigates how meaning is constructed through multimodal stylistic resources. The objectives are to examine the visual and linguistic semiotic resources in the protest images, to analyse how inscriptions, colour, gaze, gestures, composition, and spatial arrangement contribute to meaning, and to investigate how community grievances and environmental justice demands are represented. The study is grounded in Multimodal Stylistics (Nørgaard, Busse & Montoro, 2010) and supported by Visual Grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). A qualitative research design is adopted. The data consist of six protest photographs sourced from Corporate Accountability and Public Participation in Africa (CAPPA). The images document a large-scale environmental protest involving community members affected by flooding, sea incursion, and coastal erosion. The analysis focuses on the interaction of visual and verbal modes in meaning-making. The findings show that environmental crisis is strongly constructed through linguistic and visual strategies. Recurrent metaphors such as “THE SINKING CITY” frame Ayetoro as an endangered space. Linguistic inscriptions function as urgent appeals to political authorities. Visual resources such as children in school uniforms, direct gaze, and raised placards intensify emotional appeal. Colour choices such as red and yellow signal urgency and danger. The images construct collective grievance and position government and oil corporations as accountable actors. Environmental justice is expressed through mass mobilisation and digital hashtags such as #SaveAyetoroNow. The interaction of modes presents Ayetoro as a neglected and vulnerable community facing ecological collapse. The study concludes that protest images function as ideological tools of resistance and advocacy. They extend environmental discourse into visual and digital spaces. The study recommends urgent governmental intervention and environmental remediation in the affected community.

Keywords: Visual grammar, environmental justice, semiotics, coastal erosion, ideology.