Reposted from Free Speech Radio News

Year: 2011
Length: 5:30 minutes (5.03 MB)
Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

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Nations are gathering in Durban, South Africa for the next round of climate change talks. Developing nations and those most vulnerable to climate change are calling for strong commitments of emissions reduction and funding from the world’s richer nations. Past meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun have failed to create a lasting accord to confront climate change and scientists warn that time is running out.

A new report from the UN’s agency of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicts extreme weather will increase in the coming decades, including heavy rainfall and hurricanes, heat waves and droughts.

Today, we go to Nigeria, where climate change is already having an effect on the livelihoods of women in the traditional occupations of farming and fishing.
Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos.

Full transcript:

LEDE: The United Nations Climate Change Conference is due to start in Durban, South Africa, at the end of this month. The conference is aimed at working out an international agreement on limiting emissions of greenhouse gases which are responsible for climate change. Women in low income African societies are among those feeling the worst impacts of climate change. In particular, poverty is growing among African women whose traditional occupation is farming and fishing as changing weather patterns affect their source of livelihood. Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos.

DISC: Actuality of ocean waves

SAM: Ocean waves are eroding Nigeria’s Atlantic coastline and the mostly poor residents of Nigeria’s coastal communities are living with the effects. Scientists say climate change is responsible for the rising sea levels.  Ibeno, a large community in South Eastern Nigeria made up of several small islands is one of the worst hit areas. Entire islands have been submerged, displacing thousands of their inhabitants. Many of those displaced – especially women – say they have become poorer because the displacement makes it difficult for them to continue fishing in a sustainable manner. Amuwa Tade is one of the displaced women.

DISC:  (speaks in Yoruba) Needs voice over

Translation: The Ocean seriously affected us. All the children in school have returned home. They have sent them away from school, because there is no money for their school fees. See the way I am dressed, see the shoes I am wearing. I have not eaten since morning. I am living on my past glory. This is how we have been affected.

DISC: Actuality of a woman clearing weeds.

SAM: A woman clears weeds on her farm in Kano Northern Nigeria. Like their counterparts who make a livelihood from fishing, African women who farm are also facing problems caused by climate change. In Northern Nigeria AND BORDERING REGIONS, declining rainfall and desert encroachment which are both attributed to climate change have seriously affected women farmers.

The West African State of Niger has also been affected.  Aminatou Daouda Hainikoye a lawyer from the country says available water for farming has been declining over the years. Hainikoye, who is a legal advocate for small farmers, says women are at a disadvantage in securing access to the shrinking supply of water for agricultural use.

DISC: Speaks in Hausa (Needs voice over)

Translation: The lands closest to the rivers are the most expensive.  The prices of such lands have been on the increase, because they contain the water that can be used for farming. Now where will poor women get the money to purchase expensive lands? We did a study and we found out that men are the owners of all the lands close to the rivers.

SAM: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says women are the majority of farmers in many developing countries like those of Africa. Experts say the effect of climate change on Africa’s food security would negatively affect the continent’s women farmers because of their role in agriculture. Desmond Majekodunmi is an environmentalist with the Lagos based Nigerian Conservation Foundation.

DISC: You have food scarcity because of the inclement weather, crops would no longer grow as well as they should because crops are used to certain timing schedules of rain and water and now those schedules are being disrupted and this would definitely affect food security and women are on the front line of food procurement and food marketing so it is affecting our women folks

SAM: Industrialized nations are mainly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, but poor countries like those in Africa are the ones bearing the brunt of climate change. Developed nations had in the last years made several promises including the provision of 30 billion dollars between 2010 and 2012, to enable developing nations to adapt to climate change. A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development released ahead of the climate change conference in Durban says the wealthy nations are not fulfilling their promise. The London based international research organization says the implication of this is that poor countries will find it harder to adapt to climate change caused by the actions of others. Sam Olukoya FSRN, Lagos.

image info: photo by go_greener_oz on Flickr, creative commons attribution
http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3047060508

ENVIRONMENTAL rights advocacy groups in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s main oil and gas region, have joined Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) in expressing strong concerns over the stated agenda of the United States and a number of other developed countries at the forthcoming United Nations climate talks in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9.

Co-ordinator of the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), Mr. Patrick Naagbanton, told AkanimoReports in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, yesterday that the global grassroots environmental federation is calling on other governments to stop these countries from undermining the globally-agreed framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure stronger targets for legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.

The climate talks have been deadlocked since the beginning of the decade because of the failure of developed countries – those historically responsible for the bulk of the climate-changing emissions – to deliver on their moral and legal obligations for climate action.

Full article

photo credit: Kendra E. Thornbury
http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/photoGallery.php?SECTION=1&SHOW_GALLERY=YES&DB_OFFSET=15

FRIENDS of the Earth International (FOEI), a global federation of environmental rights advocacy groups, has said that they will stand by the Nigerian people to protest against any form of continued socio-economic, political and environmental injustice inline with the Occupy protests in some parts of the world. The global group which is Chaired by Nigeria’s Nnimmo Bassey, told AkanimoReports on Thursday in a telephone interview that they will rally around citizen groups anywhere in the world rising against any form of injustice. He was spoke just as the group in a statement pointed out that they were in support of the Occupy protests and called for environmental activists and organizations around the world to join the movement to demand radical system change.

FoEI with member groups in 76 countries, said at a time when many of the camps are being shut down by police, ”we offer our solidarity and our support, and we join this movement wholeheartedly”, adding, ”to save our communities and our environment, we stand united in calling for a profound transformation of the current globalized political economic system”.

The grassroots organization believes that tackling excessive corporate power and promoting economic justice are key to solving the environmental crisis, including the climate crisis.

According to Bassey, ”we are one with those who are raising and will raise their voices against corporate greed and who are speaking and will speak out for social equity and real solutions to the crises we face”

Full article

photo: Nnimmo Bassey, Chair Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth International from Radio Nederland Wereldomroep’s photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rnw/4190503174/sizes/z/in/photostream/

YENAGOA, Nigeria — A Nigerian environmental group on Monday claimed an oil spill from a pipeline operated by Italian firm ENI had badly polluted an area in the south of Africa’s largest oil producer.

The spill which reportedly occurred on September 27 is said to have polluted the swamps of the Ikeinghenbiri area of Bayelsa state in the main oil-producing Niger Delta region.

“The volume of the spill is very high and in some cases it is difficult to separate the crude from the water,” Environmental Rights Action field monitor Morris Alagoa told AFP a day after he visited the village.

The group’s executive director, who is also chairman of Friends of the Earth International, Nnimmo Bassey, said, “I understand it’s a very severe spill.”

Alagoa said he found that “in some places the whole length of the swamp is black (with oil).”

Full article

Re-posted from Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

GPS Coordinates:  Blocked bridge – Elev:9m, N 05°11.657’’, E006°29.574’’ and  Well 2 site – Elev:4m, N 05°11.655’’, E 006°29.574’’

Shell has not been fair to the community in terms of amenities says the leaders of the JK4 community, even though so much wealth is pumped out from our community soil daily. We have been drinking from the Taylor Creek that has often been polluted by crude oil spills from the company’s failed oil facilities. ERA/FoEN heard of a protest by women in the community and promptly visited the community.

JK4, otherwise known as Edagberi/Betterland community is a community in Ahaoda West local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria. It is located along the Taylor Creek, sharing boundaries with Biseni and Ikarama communities in Yenagoa local government area of Bayelsa State. Over forty oil wells operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company [SPDC], several crude oil pipelines and Shell’s Adibawa Flow Station are located within the community. Community leaders have complained in the past that Shell has not been fair to the community in terms of amenities, even though so much wealth is pumped out from the community soil daily. Without pipe borne water the people have been drinking from the Taylor Creek that has often been polluted by crude oil spills. ERA/FoEN heard of a protest by women in the community (10 October 2011) and promptly visited the community.

Full report

Re-posted from Deutsche Welle

 Nnimmo Bassey (right) with Johannes Beck, DW’s head of the Portuguese for Africa department

10/12/11

International head of Friends of the Earth, Nnimmo Bassey, is a special guest at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. The Nigerian campaigner spoke to DW about the link between literacy and environmental protection.

For years, Nnimmo Bassey has been fighting against the oil industry’s pollution in the Nile Delta. Broken pipelines, illegal small refineries and the burning of excess gas have caused an ecological disaster. According to Bassey’s organization “Environmental Rights Action,” the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth, a proper cleanup would cost $100 million.

Bassey, a laureate of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), spoke to the head of DW’s Portuguese for Africa department, Johannes Beck, at the Frankfurt Book Fair’s LitCam conference. This year’s focus is on how education can contribute to sustainable economic growth. To hear the full interview, click the link below.

Deutsche Welle: Today we’ve heard how literacy can contribute to climate protection. Yet if we look at industrialized countries, we see that many have a high literacy level – for example Germany – but we still cause a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. What do we need?

Nnimmo Bassey: The industrialized world has to a large extent – and I say this with due respect – lost the connection with nature. I mean, when was the last time you looked at a night sky to see the stars? If you are in a city with so much electric light everywhere you almost don’t know what a beautiful night sky looks like. And this is [just] a small thing.

We actually require taking this literacy to the popular level. Our scientists have to be retrained to communicate their work in a popular way, to speak the language that the people on the street can understand. Because when you keep on producing statistics and things that sound like flying above people’s heads, this is okay as a scientific finding, but is has nothing to do with me. People want what they can relate to, what they can understand.

You said industrialized countries have lost their connection to nature. But when I travel to Latin America, Africa or Asia, I feel that at least in the big cities of the developing world, people also have a very fragile connection to nature. Is it really only a problem for industrialized countries?

I would agree with this. We need a worldwide reconnection, but we must also not forget the historical basis of the conflict and challenge we are facing. When scientists tell us that 80 percent of the atmospheric space for carbon has been taken, this was not done by the developing countries.

We know some really rich polluting entities of the world, which have taken off and colonized the atmosphere by themselves. They don’t want to negotiate how the remaining 20 percent can be shared.

They don’t really care what happens the day after, because they have better resilience and better capability to withstand the storms of life that most inevitably will confront all of us.

But again, when we make some broad statements, we have to look at details. We have the global north in the south; we have the global south in the north. Because there are very rich people in poor countries who live very wasteful lives and who are creating as much damage as anybody else.

I’m personally engaged and committed to engage in joining people across the world to confront power, because corporate power has captured public structures across the world.

Full text interview

Full audio interview

By Mira Oberman | AFP – Thu, Oct 20, 2011

Re-posted from AFP

A Nigerian tribal king filed a lawsuit in a US court seeking $1 billion from Royal Dutch Shell to compensate for decades of pollution that sickened his people and damaged their lands, his lawyer said.

The suit was filed a day after the US Supreme Court said it will consider a lawsuit accusing Shell of human rights abuses in Nigeria in a landmark case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

That case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 that scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The latest case alleges that Shell’s Nigerian operations are “well below internationally recognized standards to prevent and control pipeline oil spills” because the Anglo-Dutch company “has not employed the best available technology and practices that they use elsewhere in the world.”

It cited a recent United Nations report that found that contamination was widespread in the Nigerian Delta after 50 years of oil extraction left groundwater badly contaminated and the soil soaked with hydrocarbons to depths of five meters.

The suit was brought on behalf of the people of Ogale in the Eleme local government area, where the UN team found the most serious groundwater contamination and people drinking water laced with cancer-causing benzene at 900 times World Health Organization guidelines.

Scientists found an eight centimeter layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater that served the wells. The oil was linked to a spill that had occurred six years earlier and was not properly cleaned up.

Full article

photo credit: © Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR

From the website of Amnesty International: http://blog.amnestyusa.org/business/shell-accused-over-misleading-figures-on-nigeria-oil-spills/

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a lawsuit accusing Royal Dutch Shell of human rights abuses, a case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

The plaintiffs — relatives of seven Nigerians killed by the country’s former military regime — sued the Anglo-Dutch energy giant and other firms for apparently enlisting the government to suppress resistance to oil exploration in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

The case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 which scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The 12 Nigerian plaintiffs charge Shell with “complicity in human rights violations committed against them in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta in Nigeria between 1992 and 1995,” according to their complaint put before the court.

“These violations included torture, extra-judicial executions and crimes against humanity.”

It said Shell “aided and abetted the Nigerian government in committing human rights abuses,” and added: “For the victims of human rights violations such cases often provide the only opportunity to obtain any remedy for their suffering.”

Full article

image credit: Sweet Crude

Read the Reuters piece on the same subject

Tuesday, 04 October 20

Re-posted from Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

To tell you the truth no one is comfortable with the way the River Nun is expanding while the community land is shrinking by the day. It is like a story now when we tell strangers that this community has lost over fifty meters of land in the last few years. And, if the trend should continue unchecked, we may join the monkeys in the swamps very soon. We are of the view that the dredging activities of Shell around us also have negative effect that is leading to the collapsing river banks and expansion of the River here. We are calling for assistance from government before we are wiped out from this location. What are we going to tell our children coming behind? – Maurice Jonathan

GPS Coordinate: Elev: -9m, N 04°38.395’, E006°04.910’

Peremabiri community is one among several Ijaw communities in Boma Clan of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area that settles along the Nun River. Farming and fishing are the major occupations of the people.  Apart from hosting the biggest rice farm [abandoned for several years now]in west Africa established by the moribund  Niger Delta Basin Development Authority [NDBDA], it is also host  to several oil wells including Shell’s Diebu Flow station, wellheads and pipelines.
Peremabiri has had its fair share of the negative impacts of oil exploration/exploitation activities: oil spills/fire and the effects of gas flaring that is still on-going at the flow station.
Information reached ERA/FoEN that the community was almost going into extinction due to river encroachment caused by dredging activities of Shell and because of this phenomenon it became necessary to visit the community and get an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.
ERA field monitors were led round the community by the current and past chairmen of Peremabiri Community Development Committee [CDC], Mr. Maurice Jonathan and Dickson Peresuote.

Read full report

photo:  Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

Over 700 families in Ogoniland are angry with the Rivers State government over what they allege was a forceful land acquisition by the state Ministry of Agriculture.

Consequently, the families, under the Ogoni Solidarity Forum and Ogoni Civil Society Platform have joined forces with two non-governmental organisations – the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and Social Action (SA) – to show their displeasure and concern over what they described as the “grave human rights and due process breaches” by the Rivers State government.

The said farmland of about 200 hectares is being acquired to enable a Mexican investor, Union De Iniciativa S.A De C.V, undertake a commercial banana plantation project. As a result of this, families in the Nyokhana, Tai and Babbe kingdoms of Ogoniland stand to be affected by the land acquisition.

According to some of the affected family members, heavily armed military men have been coming every week in vehicles to patrol the area and survey new lands since May 16, 2011. They force anyone in their way to lie on the ground and people report being afraid to challenge the military for fear of the consequences.

Although the farmers have been explicitly forbidden by the military to return to the land, some now sneak back onto the land to harvest the few crops that remain in order to feed their families.

Full article