It’s a disgrace. The Niger Delta is an environmental
disaster zone. And the social problems have only got worse. This ground breaking
film leaves you under no illusion that corporations like Shell have nothing
short of the complete subjugation of humanity in their sights, such is their
belligerence and lack of regard for human rights and environmental
sustainability. As you watch it, your blood will gradually boil, itself with a poison
fire of outrage at the injustice. So here we find ourselves, 20 years after the
death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a cut & dried black & white tragedy of unforgivable
proportions. And still no-one gives a
dam. After fifty years of oil
exploitation, one and a half million tons of crude oil has been spilled into
the creeks, farms and forests, the equivalent to 50 Exxon Valdez disasters, one
per year.
It is a well acknowledged permaculture principle that at the margins, life proliferates. Deltas are natural
interfaces between the water world and the land; an upwelling of nutrients and
habitat which should be the fertile mother of life and agriculture. The effects
of oil in the fragile Niger Delta communities and environment have been
enormous. Local indigenous people have seen little if any improvement in their
standard of living while suffering serious damage to their natural environment.
According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000
oil spills between 1970 and 2000.
Poison Fire follows a team of local activists as they
gather video testimonies from communities on the impact of oils spills and
gas flaring. We see creeks full of crude oil, devastated mangrove forests,
wellheads that has been leaking gas and oil for months. We meet people whose
survival is acutely threatened by the loss of farmland, fishing and drinking
water and the health hazards of gas flaring.
Gas flaring is the burning of natural gas that is associated
with crude oil when it is pumped up from the ground. In petroleum-producing
areas where insufficient investment was made in infrastructure to utilize natural
gas, flaring is employed to dispose of this toxic gas. Nigeria
flares 17.2 billion m3 of natural gas per year in conjunction with the
exploration of crude oil in the Niger Delta. This high level of gas flaring is
equal to approximately one quarter of the current power consumption of the
African continent.
But why is natural gas (called “associated gas”, or AG) is
being flared in the first place? Because oil and natural gas are mixed in every
oil deposit, the natural gas must be removed from oil before refining as the
gaseous fraction is unnecessary and combustible during fractionation. Gas
flaring is simply the burning of unwanted AG. Because oil is 30 times more
valuable than natural gas. So rather than capture it and take it to market, it
is destroyed; hardly an efficient way to treat precious natural resources. Gas
flaring is currently illegal in most countries of the world, where gas flaring
may only occur in certain circumstances such as emergency shutdowns,
non-planned maintenance, or disruption to the processing system.
Oil exploration causes a range of environmental problems. Gas
flaring contributes significantly to climate change; acid rain; local ruination
of agriculture; economic loss and pollution. This includes contamination of
both surface and ground water by benzene, xylene, toluene, and ethylbenzene;
contamination of soil by oil spill and leaks; increased deforestation; as well
as the economic loss and environmental degradation stemming from gas flaring. Flaring
releases methane, a greenhouse gas that, when released directly into the
air, traps heat in the atmosphere. The process of flaring contributes
directly to global warming.
But it is the health effects of this Poison Fire which are
most disturbing. Flaring has a substantial impact on the
health and environment of landowners who live near a flared
well. The methane release is smelly, noisy, and, according to the US
Natural Institute of Health, exposure causes “headache, dizziness, weakness,
nausea, vomiting, and loss of coordination” in people and animals. It
creates a 24×7 bright light, blocking out the night sky. Residents living near
gas flares complain of respiratory problems, skin rashes and eye irritations.
Since flaring involves carbon dioxide and sulphur outputs, in the longer term
the heart and lungs can be affected leading to bronchitis, silicosis, sulphur
poisoning of the blood, and cardiac complications. Port
Harcourt doctor, Nabbs Imegwu asserts “Extreme
long-term exposure can predispose one to, or cause, skin cancer.”
Pollutants from gas flaring are associated with a variety of
adverse health impacts, including cancer, neurological, reproductive and
developmental effects. Deformities in children, lung damage and skin problems
have also been reported. Hydrocarbon compounds are known to cause some adverse
changes in hematological parameters. These changes affect blood and
blood-forming cells negatively. And could give rise to anemia (aplastic),
pancytopenia and leukemia.
November 10 last year marked 20 years to the day since the
hanging of the writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other
leaders of the Ogoni people’s rights movement, known as MOSOP. Convicted on
faked charges by a military tribunal of “inciting the murder of four Ogoni
elders”, the Ogoni Nine as they became known, were hanged in the face of
international outrage. According to one report Saro-Wiwa’s own execution was
bungled and only succeeded at the fifth attempt. “Why are you people treating
me like this? Which type of country is this?” he is reported to have asked his
executioners.
The executions, described by Nelson Mandela as “a heinous
act”, led to Nigeria ’s
three-year suspension from the Commonwealth days later, and to economic
sanctions from the EU and the USA .
In 2011 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
released a report that confirmed scientifically what people in Ogoniland
already knew: that the environment was unproductive and unsafe for human
habitation. UNEP concluded that restoring the Ogoni environment could take 30
years in the most challenging environmental remediation exercise ever
attempted. The UNEP report recommended that $1 billion should be allocated
to set up an environmental restoration fund and begin the clean up. But in the
five years since the report was published Shell and the Nigerian government
have failed to implement its recommendations.
While a report by Shell also says overall from 2002 to 2010
“flaring from SPDC facilities has fallen by over 50 percent,” it says this was
partially due to a decrease in oil extraction owing to what they call “militant
activities.” In the same manner, it recognized that the 2010 increase in
flaring from 2009 was because oil extraction rose following a drop in violence
in the region.
The Nigerian government has not enforced environmental
regulations effectively because they have deliberately created a bureaucratic
quagmire to match that of the oil fields themselves. They are in fact crudely
opaque. Neither the Nigerian Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) nor
the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has implemented anti-flaring
policies for natural gas waste from oil production, nor have they monitored the
emissions to ensure compliance. FEPA has had the authority to issue standards
for water, air and land pollution and has had the authority to make regulations
for oil industry. However, in some cases their regulations conflict with DPR
regulations started in 1991 for oil exploration. So their hands are tied by an
innocent accident of bureaucracy. Tied tightly, as the noose around a
protester’s neck.
As the documentary demonstrates, the oil-producing
communities have experienced severe marginalization and neglect. The
environment and human health have frequently been a secondary consideration for
oil companies and the Nigerian government. The government’s main interest in
the oil industry is to maximize monetary profits from oil production. Oil
companies find it more economically expedient to flare the natural gas and pay
the insignificant fine than to re-inject the gas back into the oil wells.
Additionally, because there is an insufficient energy market especially in
rural areas, oil companies do not see an economic incentive to collect the gas.
Below is the first of many One Man Photoshop Protests which
I will blog in future months. It is based on an Alan Hardman cartoon along
similar lines, so I can’t take all the credit for the idea. I think I
originally saw the Hardman cartoon in a book by Martin Cock and Bill Hopwood
called Global Warning: Socialism And The Environment, in which I get a nod in the acknowledgements for
providing some early material. Not for my skills as a cartoonist.
One Man Photoshop Protest
Bit dated now, but well worth a read.
UPDATE: I managed to find Hardman’s cartoon online. It’s
better than mine by far. First of all; it was his idea! Secondly, the image has
nine victims, which is more accurate. Thirdly, it didn't take Alan Hardman 20
years to comment on the horrors of the Niger Delta.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, left. Alan Hardman cartoon, right.
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