Oil and the Environment [15]

Oil development is responsible for laying waste to formerly productive areas. Pollution from oil spills destroys marine life and crops, makes water unsuitable for fishing and renders many acres of farmland unusable. Brine from oil fields contaminates rivers and streams, making them unfit as sources of drinking water. Gas flares near villages and high-pressure oil pipelines that snake across farmlands bring acid rain, deforestation, and destruction of wildlife. Toxic, nonbiodegradable by-products of oil refining dumped in the area are dangerous to people, flora, and fauna. Roads constructed through towns to link oil wells destroy drainage systems and lead to severe flooding; such roads reduce water flow to timberland and cause the atrophy and death of thousands of acres of forest.

The poverty of the Niger River Delta is in part the consequence of oil production, especially of its environmental impact. The Delta is 70,000 square kilometers of marshland, creeks, tributaries, and lagoons; fragile mangrove forests cover about one-third of the area. Arable land and freshwater are both scarce. An ethnically diverse population of 7 million people lives in the Delta's fishing and farming communities. The discovery of oil dramatically changed these societies and their environment. The Niger Delta's oil is the source of Nigeria's wealth, yet poverty is widespread in the Delta, exacerbated by the high cost of living. Only 27 percent of the Delta's people have access to safe drinking water, and only 30 percent of households have electricity. The figure of one doctor per 82,000 people in the Delta is more than three times the national average. Education levels are below the national average and are particularly low for women.