The FishNet Alliance is opposed to the recent move by the Federal Government (FG) of Nigeria to vigorously probe, explore and exploit Nigeria’s water bodies noting that more than 80% of the water bodies in Nigeria are already suffering from one level of harm to other as a result of exploration and exploitation activities on them.
This comes on the heels of the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbanjo, SAN who inaugurated an Expanded Partnership Committee on Sustainable Blue Economy at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The Blue Economy model project involves emerging renewable energy, seabed extractive activities and marine biotechnology and bio-prospecting. And the question is, what is the model of offshore and near shore exploration and exploitation being carried out presently in the country that has inundated her inland waters and oceans with pollution? And the dependent aquatic ecosystems badly altered?
FishNet Alliance argues that if this is allowed, it will further undermine the ecological integrity of the already impacted ecosystems and her biodiversity. Interactions with fishers reveal that aside livelihood loss; a lot of aquatic animals have gone extinct as a result of exploration and exploitation activities. Also, in part, responsible for the destruction of mangrove forests (mangrove forests on coastlines offer a strong line of defense in times of erosions, hurricanes, cyclones and other form of storms and also serve as spawning ground for a variety of fish species) in Nigeria – this is the largest in Africa and third in the world.
The Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey called for caution noting that “it will be very unfair and wicked for anyone to imagine or even talk about exploiting inland water bodies and oceans in Nigeria when coastal communities are still battling with spill and lack of proper cleaning and remediation in sight. He further added that the last we heard of Ororo1 well in shallow water Oil Mining Lease (OML) 95 off the coast of Ondo State which caught fire during a hydraulic work over operation, was still on fire and there seemed to be no efforts to put out the fire and have the a proper cleanup and remediation.”
Bassey also noted that “this renewed call for ocean exploitation could be a component of the divestment drive of multinational companies after transferring their polluted fields to local operators and leaving communities with the burden of confusion on whom to hold accountable for the pollution of their communities. If this is allowed, we should expect more of these cases and even worse cases”
The Coordinator, FishNet Alliance, Stephen Oduware lamented “that the obsession of Nigeria’s Federal Government to opening more doors to exploitation offshore, seabed mining, oil and gas extraction, and related activities is a misplaced priority and will further drive the already alarming degradation of our aquatic ecosystem”.
He further stated that the announcement by the FG, was a betrayal of their own commitments in the recently submitted Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) where Nigeria recommitted to its unconditional contribution of reducing carbon emissions by 20 per cent below business-as-usual by 2030, while it increased its conditional target to 47 per cent as against the 45 per cent captured in the 2015 NDC.
The FishNet Alliance as an Africa-wide network of fishers engaged in and promoting sustainable fishing practices in line with ecosystem limits. The Alliance stands to oppose extractive activities in water bodies – including rivers, lakes and oceans and it’s position on the Blue Economy is that profits should not be put before nature, environment and wellbeing of people
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