Suchergebnisse

AbstractGreater involvement of women is globally believed to enhance environmental management outcomes. Despite being disproportionately affected by environmental degradation primarily caused by oil spills in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, women in the region are often excluded in environmental decision-making processes. Women involved in farming and fishing face increased vulnerability to contaminated land, food insecurity and conflicts driven by environmental degradation. Using a mixed approach, women, lawmakers, policymakers, regulators, civil society organizations, environmental management practitioners, and government agents responsible for environmental remediation were engaged through interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaires to examine women's inclusion in environmental decision-making and governance in the Ogoni contaminated land remediation project in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The results indicate that lack of trust and confidence in drivers of the environmental decision-making process could affect women's participation and involvement in environmental management. Although cultural beliefs and practices impede the participation of women in the region, their actual participation does not independently translate into inclusion in environmental decision-making due to limited capacity, confidence and trust in the process. Creating platforms for capacity building, developing gender policy, adapting appropriate communication strategies, initiating women networks and strengthening social cohesion could enhance women involvement in environmental decision-making in regions with similar cultural context to the Niger Delta region.

Sites affected by petroleum hydrocarbons from oil exploitation activities have been identified as a major environmental and socio-economic problem in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The current Nigerian regulatory instruments to manage these contaminated sites are fragmented and the roles and responsibilities of government agencies, such as the Department for Petroleum Resources (DPR), and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), are not well defined. This lack of coordination has led to ineffective land contamination policy and poor enforcement more generally. Appropriate, risk-based policy instruments are needed to improve regulatory capacity, and to enhance the regulator's ability to manage new and existing petroleum hydrocarbons contaminated sites. Lessons can be learned from countries like the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States America (USA) that have experience with the management and clean up of historically contaminated land. In this paper, we review the status of petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated sites management in Nigeria and identify the gaps in existing policy and regulation. We review the contaminated land policies and regulation from the UK and the USA, and identify lessons that could be transferred to the Nigerian system. Finally, we provide a series of recommendations (e.g. source – pathway-receptor approach, soil screening criteria, clean-up funding, liability) that could enhance contaminated land legislation in Nigeria.

Transfer of environmental policy from one country to another without consideration for the contextual differences (e.g. socio-cultural, economic) between the countries can be a barrier that prevents adoption, or limits the implementation and effectiveness of that policy. In this study, we investigate the socio-cultural preferences of stakeholders in the Niger Delta to understand how different stakeholder groups value socio-cultural differences. We used a modified, mixed-methods stakeholder engagement approach to capture this information, combining stakeholder workshops and interviews. Community groups, regulators, experts in contaminated land management, and oil exploration operators participated in this study, and our results revealed a general consensus concerning the ranked priority of issues. Top issues included water quality, soil quality for agriculture, food production, and human health and wellbeing. Despite this consensus, differences in how stakeholder groups arrived at their rankings might pose a challenge for policy makers. Other potential barriers to effective policy transfer identified in this study include political and cultural differences, regulatory structure, and corruption. In sum, this study provides insights about the socio-cultural preferences of stakeholders from the Niger Delta; information that could be used by policy makers to contextualise contaminated land management policy transfer.

Over the past five decades, Nigeria has developed a number of contaminated land legislations to address the damage caused primarily by oil and gas exploitation activities. Within these legislations exists elements of risk assessment and risk-based corrective action. Despite this progress, we argue that contaminated land management approaches in Nigeria need further development to be able to integrate new scientific information, and to address environmental, economic, and social values. By comparison, advanced contaminated land regimes in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America (USA) apply a number of integrative approaches (e.g. sustainability appraisal, liability regime, funding mechanisms, technology demonstration) that enable them to meet the environmental, economic, and social needs of their populations. In comparison, Nigerian governance lacks many of these mechanisms and management of contaminated land is ad hoc. In this paper we propose an integrated risk assessment framework for Nigeria that incorporates the principles of sustainability and stakeholder engagement into the decision-making processes for contaminated land risk assessment and risk management. The integrated approach relies on transparency to promote acceptance and build trust in institutions, and uses stakeholder engagement to address data deficiencies. We conclude this paper with a roadmap for how Nigeria might implement such an integrative approach into their existing contaminated land regulatory system, as well as identify a series of policy priorities that should be addressed.

AbstractThis study documents the socio-economic baselines in selected oil-impacted communities prior to the commencement of the Ogoni clean-up and restoration project. Adopting mixed approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews (KIIs), and household surveys, we surveyed the pre-remediation socio-economic conditions in the Ogoniland communities between July 2018 and March 2019. Results indicated that almost all respondents (99.6%) agreed that the smell of petroleum products or crude oil was evident in the air they breathed even as there were visible black particles (soot) in the respondents' nostrils, on their clothes, and in water. The respondents described the ambient air as smoky and choked with an offensive smell. The household waters were smelly, brownish, or oily, and most respondents (76%) cannot afford to treat their water. Forty-two percent of the respondents who relied on fishing and farming for a living sought for alternative means of subsistence and acknowledged that oil pollution caused stunted growth and low crop yield. The majority of respondents (91%) reported falling fish catches, while the fish caught smell and taste of oil, lowering their market value and posing a potential health risk to consumers. It is evident that oil pollution has impacted the socio-ecological values and sustainable livelihood in Ogoniland. This study provides baseline data for monitoring post-remediation socio-economic improvements in Ogoniland. It also highlights areas of urgent intervention to improve livelihood, and access to basic amenities (e.g., potable drinking water), waste management infrastructure, and statutory policy changes for sustainable development in Ogoniland.