…calls for declaration of environmental emergency in region

Renowned Niger/Delta environmentalist, Dr Nnimmo Bassey has decried the wellbeing of those who depend on fisheries for food and nutritional security, saying it is ‘clearly’ at risk.

Bassey, who is the Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), lamented what he described as a dangerous trend of partitioning water bodies as marine domains of Public and private establishments.

Bassey disclosed this at HOMEF’s School of Ecology on Marine Protected Areas(MPAs)held in Port Harcourt at the weekend, blaming the trend on colonialism which he argued has gone beyond the political control and exploitation of one nation by another and has extended to relationship with Nature.

“This means that after the extreme exploitation of the land, the sea and the sky are the new targets. Just as lands have been demarcated as mining blocs, the same is overtaking the seas,” he said

He, however, said the implication of grabbing water bodies evidenced by Industrial installations, such as crude oil platforms, command land swathes of territories around as security buffers, causing restrictions for fisher folks and coastal communities to access certain areas is posing a threat to their livelihood.

“Stories from fishers who have tried to move into the high seas in pursuit of their business is that large parts of the continental shelf and beyond are off limits because they have been claimed and literally cordoned off by extractive industries’ installations. Another debilitating factor is that of unregulated industrial fishing in our waters,” he said.

However, Bassey advised that it was time for Nigeria and West African regional governments to declare an environmental emergency in the Niger/Delta region after a study showed that about 90 percent of sea-based pollution, including plastic wastes, in the Gulf of Guinea, is traceable to the Niger Delta.

According to him: “It is time for our governments (and ECOWAS) to declare an environmental emergency in the region. We need this to ensure that our peoples have a safe environment to carry out their economic, socio-cultural, recreational, and spiritual activities.

“One immediate step that must be taken to ensure that our aquatic commons are not enclosed and grabbed is to have community-managed Marine Protected Areas. Such protected areas could cover rivers, creeks, swamps, and continental shelf.”