Almost every day, Udengs Eradiri is informed of another oil spill in Bayelsa state in southern Nigeria, in the Niger Delta. Most of the time, little or nothing is done to clean up the mess, says Eradiri, the state’s commissioner for the environment.
You just need to take a tour to understand the magnitude of the environmental abuse, he adds. [Bayelsa] used to be green, you could go to farm or fish. We used to have very impressive harvests. You would spend just an hour in the water and you have a lot of fish.
Today, he added, you can spend the whole day without catching anything.
Oil was first pumped in Bayelsa in 1956 by Shell. Since then, several international oil companies have extracted oil from across the Niger Delta.
In Bayelsa and elsewhere, communities have faced an environmental catastrophe. About 40-million litres of oil are spilled every year across the Niger Delta, according to the Rise for Bayelsa campaign.
Air, land and water have all been contaminated, with studies reporting devastating effects on residents’ health and livelihoods. Vast areas of the state’s waterways and mangrove swamps one of the most diverse ecosystems in Africa have been destroyed or put at risk.
Farmland has been cloaked in oil, contaminating crops and exposing people to high levels of heavy metals such as chromium, lead and mercury.
Meanwhile, gas flares where natural gas associated with petroleum extraction is burned off in the atmosphere have filled the air with pollutants, and created acid rain.
It’s really telling on the people, says Eradiri.
Of Bayelsa’s estimated population of two-million people, three-quarters rely on fishing or farming to support themselves.
Those communities are getting involved in other ways of surviving. And that’s why there’s been a lot of upsurge in criminal activities as well as artisan refining, all to survive.