Oil Spill Incidents and Wetlands Loss in Niger Delta: Implication for Sustainable Development Goals (Published)
The implementation of a comprehensive founded sustainable development strategy, strengthened by careful management of oil and gas wealth, combined with an continuing exemplary for preservation of the natural environment, is an vital for the Niger Delta region. Oil spills have occurred over the year in the Niger Delta and wetland ecosystems has been degraded by the impact of the spills. Nigeria is showcasing an average of 11 Ramsar-listed coastal and freshwater wetlands, which together cover, 1 076 730 ha. Of these 11 sites, two are located in the Niger Delta region. The Niger delta Region of Nigeria is a wetland of its own covering about 76,000sq km and has the biggest mangrove forest wetlands ecosystem in Africa (11,134 sq km) and the third biggest in the world with its exceptional huge floodplain area in south-south geopolitical zone of Nigeria. National Oil Spill, Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) alerted with a recent aid through data acquisition in monitoring of oil spill from January 2013 to September 2014 reveals that there were 1,930 oil spill incidents in the core Niger Delta are primarily offshore incidence in wetlands ecosystem. Therefore oil spills occurred as a result of inadequate servicing and maintenance of the oil and gas facilities such as preventer blowout, wellhead, flow lines or pipelines, sabotage, accidental and equipment failures by the oil companies. The implementation of wise use concept of wetlands ecosystem as an approach, within the context of sustainable development goals as a centerpiece of modern efforts to manage wetlands will help the policy makers to integrate wetlands ecosystem to environmental planning to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Keywords: Ecosystem, Niger-Delta, Oil-spillage, SDGs, Wetlands
Evaluation of Some Oil Companies in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: An Environmental Impact Approach (Published)
The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has no doubt played a major role to Nigeria’s growth and acted as the backbone of the Nigerian economy, hence the export of oil and gas resources by the petroleum sector has substantially improved the Nation’s economy over the past five decades. Activities associated with petroleum exploration, development and production operations have local detrimental and significant impacts on the atmosphere, soils and sediments, surface and groundwater, marine environment and terrestrial ecosystems in the Niger delta. The Niger Delta consists of diverse ecosystems of mangrove swamps, fresh water swamps, rainforest and is the largest wetland in Africa and among the ten most important wetland and marine ecosystems in the world, but due to oil pollution caused by exploration, the area is now characterized by contaminated streams and rivers, forest destruction and biodiversity loss, in general the area is ecological wasteland. This affects the livelihood of the indigenous people who depend on the ecosystem services for survival leading to increased poverty and displacement of people. Discharges of petroleum hydrocarbon and petroleum – derived waste streams have caused environmental pollution, adverse human health effects, socioeconomic problems and degradation of host communities in the oil producing states in the Niger Delta region. However, the oil industry located within the region has contributed immensely to the growth and development of the country, which is a fact that cannot be disputed but unsustainable oil exploration activities has rendered the Niger Delta region one of the five most severely petroleum damaged ecosystems in the world.
Keywords: Bio-diversity, Environmental degradation, Gas-flaring, Oil-spillage, petroleum exploration