Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth Nigeria

The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment hereby invite you to this year’s National Environmental Consultation, which holds from the 25 - 26 November, 2009 at Grand Montecito Limited Hotel, Plot F/33, Sani Abacha Road, Close 303, GRA Phase 3, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.


Background of the event

The National consultation on the environment took off in 2008 as an annual event to stimulate broad based national discourse on the state of the environment with the view to identifying and recommending policy directions.

The 2009 consultation with the theme “Envisioning a Post Petroleum Nigeria” will examine the growing impact of fossil fuel extraction on the climate and issues around oil as a sustainable economic backbone for Nigeria.

The Broad objectives of this year’s consultations include:
•    Stimulate a structured debate about a post oil economy
•    Examine critical issues like gas flaring and climate change and recommend immediate
•    Examine eco-friendly alternatives for the Nigerian economy
•    Produce work plan for sustained engagement for policy interventions to promote alternative economies.

In the midst of the global call for the end of gas flaring in Nigeria and numerous shifts of the gas flare out date by oil companis operating in Nigeria, Shell ignited a new gas flare furnace in Gbarantoru community in Bayelsa State, Nigeria at about midnight on the 25th of October, 2009. Due to the seriousness of the act by Shell, ERA made a follow up visit on November 5, 2009 to ascertain the current situation.

Location: Gbarantoru community in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Shell should not gas us to death  -Bubraye Dakolo

INTRODUCTION

Gbarantoru community is an Ijaw town in Ekpetiama Kingdom of Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. It is located on the outskirts of Yenagoa, the State capital. Shell Petroleum Development Company has been operating in the community for many years. The Gbaran/Ubie Gas Gathering Plant is located here.

HEATING THE AIR, POISONING THE LAND

Shell’s commencement of a new gas flare at a time when the routine gas flaring has received global condemnation, and with the full knowledge that gas flaring is an illegal activity in Nigeria, is seen by the locals as an act of impunity and total disregard for their health. Gas flaring is a major contributor of global warming greenhouse gases. The commence this destructive activity a few weeks from the climate negotiations in Copenhagen indicates Shell’s disregard for the welfare of humanity and our climate.

20-24 Oct. 2009
 
Member groups of Friends of the Earth Africa, representatives of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) Food Sovereignty Programme and Agrofuels Campaign, civil society groups, development experts, community representatives, farmers, government ministries and agencies, media representatives and consumer rights groups, among others, met in Abuja from 20-24 October 2009 at the conference on AGRA, Land Grabs and Non-Ecological Agriculture.
 
Participants, at the conference, hosted by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) discussed the challenge posed by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) - an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation - and the need to build knowledge and resistance to land grabs on the continent and other non-ecological agriculture that threaten African agriculture and food sovereignty.
   

Field Report #211

16 October 2009

Six days after the fire incident Chevron called for a meeting with community leaders at Okpuekaba community (this community also has an oil field). We went there and they brought boom materials which was handed over to us. We took it expecting them to send skilled personnel to go with us to fix it but to our greatest amazement they left us to do it ourselves. As leaders we felt if we leave the spill unchecked our people would continue to suffer, so we went ahead to do it to the best of our ability. – Barrister Jide Nana

INTRODUCTION

The people of Ojumole are predominantly fishermen.
Ojumole community is close to Omuro community and both host Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) oil facilities.

ERA Monitor reached Ojumole after a 45minutes speedboat ride from Ugbo-nla, Ilaje.

This field visit was carried out to assess the level of damage done by the fire outbreak that occurred on the 3 October 2009 at a Chevron facility at Ojumole. It was also to ascertain the response of the oil giant to this severe incident.

OBSERVATION

During the visit ERA monitor observed that the spill and the resulting fire from the facility destroyed much vegetation on the path of the fire, many fishing lines and nets, and some buildings. The river was awash with crude. The only visible response from Chevron was a boom the company sent for community use in containing the spill. There was no assistance of any sort from experienced personnel. Efforts to remediate the spill are yet to start almost two weeks after the incident.

Fire has been raging at the Ojumole Oil Field, Ojumole town, Ugbo Kingdom in Ilaje local government area, Ondo State, Nigeria.

The fire is said to have started on Saturday, 3rd October, 2009, following an "explosion" and is very close to Bowoto Community. The cause is yet to be ascertained. Community folk are being displaced in panic. More details to be published as facts emerge.

Emergency help is needed.

- By Stephan Faris

It wasn't an oil spill that made Nnimmo Bassey an environmentalist. It was a massacre — the 1990 assault by Nigeria's armed forces on the village of Umuechem, where residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta had accused the Shell Petroleum Development Company of environmental degradation and economic neglect. In two days of violence, 80 people died and nearly 500 houses were destroyed. "We woke up from a sleep and ... everything was collapsing around us," says Bassey, 51, head of Environmental Rights Action, the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth. 

 Read the full article

Location: Sabon-Barki and Giyel Communities, Jos South LGA, Plateau State

Introduction
ERA monitors visited Sabon-Barki community and Gyel District, both in Jos South LGA of Plateau State on August 5, 2009 in response to the growing call by impacted communities for a remediation of the ecological disaster and dislocation wrought on their environment and livelihood by nearly a century of tin mining and the failure of government at the federal and state levels to address the problem.

The ecological disaster in Sabon-Barki and Gyel mirror the picture in most communities of the Jos Plateau, a region which, in its pristine state (before commercial resource extraction began), is described in the detailed classification of Nigerian vegetation as a transitional zone between the southern and northern guinea savannah.

Like other communities in the Jos Plateau, the once rich vegetation in both communities is complemented by an extensive sheet of natural minerals in the earth’s crust such as bauxite, tantalite, columbine ores, and cassiterite, among others. These were however exploited recklessly by foreign companies of the colonial era before they were forced to leave in 1972 when the Federal Government nationalized them. 

Shell at Ikarama: Hiding oil spills by turning the soil

Location: Ikarama community, in Yenagoa LGA of Bayelsa State

INTRODUCTION
Available statistics and reports show that Ikarama community, one of the six towns settled along the Taylor Creek that make up Okordia clan in Yenagoa Local Government Area, has the highest oil spill related incidents in Bayelsa state. Last year [2008] for instance, between June and December, the community experienced five oil spills at different sites. This year, four of such spills have also occurred, two of which happened as a result of equipment/ operational failure inside the Okordia Manifold of Shell. As would be expected, the several spills have rendered much of the people’s land, swamp, lakes, and ponds useless; these spill sites are more or less derelict spots in the community.
Despite the obvious need for Shell to clean up and remediate these polluted sites and sustained advocacy campaigns by environmental groups like ERA ,Shell went ahead to make false claims early this year that it had commenced clean up of oil spill sites in the community since last year. Viewing the above claim as not only false but a misrepresentation of facts by Shell, ERA took steps to debunk the falsehood, even as community folks also expressed themselves through the media to present the facts.