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	Dead fish and oily water are part of daily life for Niger Delta residents by Anene Ejikeme Assistant Professor of African History at Trinity University Nigeria   June 2010   The disastrous BP oil spill is now believed to be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Even worse than Exxon Valdez. Imagine an Exxon Valdez happening every year for 50 years. Pretty unimaginable. Yet, this is what residents of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta have been living with for the last 50 years.   Experts estimate that some 13 million barrels of oil have been spilt in the Niger Delta since oil exploration began in 1958. This is the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez every year for 50 years.   Although the Obama administration has come under criticism for not responding quickly enough, to the BP oil spill, there is no denying that top government officials, including the president himself, have felt compelled to speak about the spill and to insist that BP will be held accountable.   How differently things play out in Nigeria. Not only does the Nigerian government usually not bother to issue statements, it never feels compelled to decry such spills.   I would be willing to bet that even residents of the smallest Nigerian villages have heard about the Gulf oil spill. By contrast, I know few people in the United States who have heard about the oil spills in the Niger Delta. Yet Nigeria is among the top five suppliers of oil to the U.S.   The Niger Delta, which is home to more than 30 million people and is considered one of the world’s most important ecosystems, produces almost all of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings.   Dead fish and oily water are part of daily life for Niger Delta residents, as are gas flares. Some middle-aged Niger Delta residents have never had a night of total darkness. There is a law against gas flaring in Nigeria, but it continues to be widely breached.   Oil companies operate in Nigeria with little or no oversight from the government. It must be noted that the government has part ownership in the subsidiaries of all the oil multinationals which operate in Nigeria.   A year ago, Amnesty International published a report, “Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.” The report focused on Shell because it is by far the largest operator in the Delta. According to the Oil Spill Intelligence Report, a 10-year study commissioned by Greenpeace, although Shell operates in more than 100 countries, 40 percent of all its oil spills happen in Nigeria. That’s simply staggering.   The Greenpeace and Amnesty reports tell of spills that had been continuous for years and many that had never been cleaned up.   According to the Amnesty report, “Oil spills, waste dumping and gas flaring are notorious and endemic in the Niger Delta.” Residents of the Niger Delta “have to drink, cook with and wash in polluted water, and eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins.” The fish that is not polluted is killed by the oil and toxins, making earning a livelihood impossible for many who depended on the sale of fish.   Shell’s response has been that most of the oil spillage is due to sabotage and vandalism. While acknowledging that theft and vandalism are sometimes to blame for the oil spills, Amnesty insists that the oil companies are to blame for the vast majority of spills.   Experts predict that as oil companies turn increasingly to the deep ocean and other difficult environments to get oil, more leaks are likely.   The pattern in Nigeria also points in the direction of increasing spills. In 2008, Shell reported double the amount of spills in 2007; in 2009 it reported double the spills in 2008.
	Restoring damaged ecosystems helps to generate wealth by Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP   3 June 2010   Repairing forests, lakes and other types of nature reserves that have been damaged or depleted can generate wealth, create jobs and become a vital means of alleviating poverty, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), says in a new report.   The report identifies thousands of ecosystem restoration projects worldwide and showcases over 30 initiatives that are transforming the lives of communities and countries across the globe.   Entitled Dead Planet, Living Planet: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration for Sustainable Development, the report underlines that far from being a cost on growth and development, many environmental investments in degraded, nature-based assets can generate substantial and multiple returns.   “The ecological infrastructure of the planet is generating services to humanity worth by some estimates over $70 trillion a year, perhaps substantially more,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director.   “This report is aimed at bringing two fundamental messages to governments, communities and citizens on World Environment Day (WED) and in 2010 – the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity. Namely, that mismanagement of natural and nature-based assets is undercutting development on a scale that dwarfs the recent economic crisis,” Mr. Steiner said.   “Well-planned investments and re-investments in the restoration of these vast, natural and nature-based utilities not only has a high rate of return, but will be central, if not fundamental, to sustainability in a world of rising aspirations, populations, incomes and demands on the Earth’s natural resources,” said Mr. Steiner from Kigali, Rwanda, the main host for this year’s global WED events. The Day will be officially marked on Saturday.   Nature restoration activities include rehabilitating water flows to rivers and lakes, improving soil stability and fertility for agriculture and combating climate change by sequestering and storing carbon from the atmosphere.   The report underlines that maintaining and managing intact ecosystems must be the key priority. However, given that more than 60 per cent of the ecosystems, ranging from marshes and coral reefs to tropical forests and soils, are already degraded, restoration must now be an equal priority.   Rehabilitating ecosystems also generates jobs in a world where currently 1.3 billion are unemployed or underemployed, while supporting international goals to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity, a key theme this year.   The report cites evidence that well-planned, science-based, community-supported programmes can recover between 25 and 44 per cent of the original services alongside the animals, plants and other biodiversity of the former intact system.   As an example, it points to a study on restoring degraded grasslands and lands around river systems in South Africa’s Drakensberg Mountains. It estimates that the project will bring back winter river flows to communities amounting to close to 4 million cubic metres of water, cut sediment losses and store carbon.   In Peru, the theme of ecosystem restoration underpins the Projeto Agua Limpa or Clean Water Project co-launched by UNEP Goodwill Ambassador Gisele Bündchen and her father in 2008 in her hometown of Horizontina.   The project is aimed at restoring the health of water supplies while boosting biodiversity by restoring forests and rehabilitating river banks and riverside vegetation in river basins.   “UNEP’s report on ecosystem restoration spotlights the enormous opportunities for communities to invest in their future development,” said Ms. Bündchen after the report was released.   “Restoring degraded environments is among the best gifts we can give and hand on to current and future generations – we need to bring to the attention of everyone the central link between forests, wetlands and other natural systems and our survival and prosperity in this extraordinary world,” she added.   The report makes several recommendations, including urging overseas development agencies, international finance agencies and regional development banks to factor ecosystem restoration and long-term management assistance into development support, food security initiatives, job creation and poverty alleviation funding.   It also recommends that one per cent of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) be set aside annually for conservation, management and restoration of the environment and natural resources, with the precise figure linked to national circumstances.   Ecosystem restoration should be guided by experiences learned to date to avoid unintended consequences such as the introduction of alien invasive species and pests, the report suggests. It also posits that infrastructure projects that damage an ecosystem have funds set aside to restore a similarly degraded ecosystem elsewhere in a country or community. Visit the related web page
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