A new charity has been founded to work with faith groups on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in the world’s poorest countries. “Faith in Water,” as it is christened, is said to be the first charity to focus specifically on working with faith-managed schools on WASH issues to improve children’s lives and create lasting community impact.
Helping people access clean water and safe sanitation is one of the ways the new organisation intends to improve lives
Based in Bristol, UK, the group works globally with all major faiths, says its promoters in a statement. They listed its key aims to include: helping faiths to focus on WASH in their schools and communities, and helping secular NGOs to build effective partnerships with faith groups.
Founder and director, Mary Bellekom, says: “Clean water and good sanitation are essential for health, education and livelihoods. Yet 750 million people – one in nine worldwide – don’t have clean drinking water and more than a third of people – around 2.5 billion – lack safe sanitation facilities.
“Diseases caused by dirty water and inadequate sanitation not only trap people in a cycle of illness, poverty and poor quality of life, they are the second biggest killer of children aged under five worldwide and are responsible for more child deaths than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
“Helping people access clean water and safe sanitation is one of the most important ways we can improve people’s lives – and working with faith groups is one of the most effective ways of reaching the world’s poorest people. Faith groups are involved in at least 50% of schools worldwide so they have a significant role to play in promoting WASH, not just for children but for their families too.”
According to her, Faith in Water grew out of the UK-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) which has spent 20 years working with faith groups on environmental issues. It was founded after it became clear that there was both a gap and an opportunity when it came to working on WASH issues.
Ms Bellekom adds: “Around 84% of the world’s population say they belong to a faith, and water and cleanliness have spiritual significance in many of the world’s key religions. Yet faith groups are rarely seen as potential development partners, and faiths themselves do not always make the link between their spiritual teachings and practical action to improve WASH.
“At ARC we constantly heard from our faith partners, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, that water and sanitation were their biggest problems in their schools.
“We realised that no one was focusing on working with faith schools as a gateway into the wider community. Because of ARC’s 20-year experience of working with faith groups, we know the impact that they can have. That’s why Faith in Water was set up as an independent charity dedicated to working on WASH.”
Faith in Water is registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (No 1164290). One of its first projects is a 32-page publication sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on how faiths and secular groups can work better together.
Putting Clean Hands Together, as the publication is called, makes the case for why faith schools should give high priority to WASH issues, and why secular groups should partner with faith schools for increased impact. It also looks at the spiritual significance of water and cleanliness in five major faiths: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism, and gives examples of case studies. It can be downloaded from Faith in Water’s website: http://www.faithinwater.org/putting-clean-hands-together.html.
Approved by over 190 countries, the Paris Agreement is a universal, legal agreement that will be opened for signatures in April 2016 and come into force in January 2020
Roger-Mark De Souza. Photo credit: newsecuritybeat.org
The groundbreaking agreement reached at the 2015 Paris climate change conference is a diplomatic triumph. Laurent Fabius, foreign minister of France and president of the meeting formally known as the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), called the final text “differentiated, fair, dynamic, durable, balanced, and legally binding.”
The Paris Agreement is a universal, legal agreement under the UNFCCC, the international convention on climate change which came into force in 1994. More than 190 countries approved the Paris climate Agreement, which will be opened for signatures in April 2016 and come into force in January 2020.
The Paris Agreement represents a new era for climate diplomacy because it represents significant progress on the three main pillars of climate change policy (mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage), and significantly welcomed to the negotiation table key players who had been missing in action, such as China and Canada.
There are two main policy responses to climate change: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation addresses the root causes of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while adaptation seeks to lower the risks posed by the consequences of climate changes. A third policy response addresses the residual impacts of climate change on vulnerable countries that mitigation and adaptation efforts do not address. This third area is usually referred to as “loss and damage,” which is either what could be repaired, such as critical infrastructure, or what is lost forever due to climate change, such as ancestral lands submerged under rising seas.
For the first time, all developed and developing nations are required to take action to tackle global warming by limiting their greenhouse gas emissions. Governments are to hold the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels and subsequently work on limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees. The Agreement requires action for the first time from developing nations, including large emitters such as China and India, to find ways to lower the trajectory of their emissions growth. Under the terms of the deal, every five years each country will submit a new national climate action plan, which cannot be less ambitious than the previous plan. The five-year review will be accompanied by a reporting and transparency system. The 1.5-degree target is a win for small islands and other low-lying countries, which argue that their lands and livelihoods are at risk if the world warms by more.
On the adaptation front, the Paris Agreement establishes a goal to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability. Beyond adaptation, the Agreement specifically makes reference to “loss and damage” due to climate-related disasters, but a footnote clearly states that this reference does not involve liability or compensation. The Paris Agreement makes permanent, however, the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, established two years ago to find ways to address these issues. The outcome also establishes a task force on climate change-related displacement within the Warsaw International Mechanism. Wealthier nations also agreed to provide $100 billion a year toward climate adaptation in support of poorer nations. But it is not yet certain how firm this commitment is, and, indeed, how quickly the money will flow.
By Roger-Mark De Souza (Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience at the Wilson Centre, where he leads programmes on climate change resilience, reproductive and maternal health, environmental security, and livelihoods, including the Global Sustainability and Resilience Programme, Environmental Change and Security Programme, and Maternal Health Initiative)
The 30-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Government of Nigeria by the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) over the delayed clean-up of the devastated Ogoni environment did not come as a surprise to observers. The President was widely acclaimed when he declared that the implementation of the UNEP report, released on 4 August 2011, would be fast-tracked. That was five months ago. The initial things that were expected to be done include populating and inauguration of the structures that would over see the implementation exercise. These have not been done. Without these basic structures nothing else can happen.
A banner by the Ogoni Cleanup Campaign. Photo credit: saction.org
In the words of MOSOP president, Mr. Legborsi Pyagbara, “We are seizing this opportunity to remind the government that the unusual delay for the take-off of the project is becoming unbearable and indeed taxing our patience.” He went on to urge the Federal Government to announce the structures and the roadmap for the implementation of the report in a manner that respects the sensibilities of the communities.
He further stated, “The ongoing delay on the part of the government will continue to be seen as an act of genocide being committed against the Ogoni people. We are giving the Federal Government a 30-day ultimatum to commence the implementation of the report or we will take up a series of non-violent measures to press for our demand.”
The struggle by the Ogoni people took on special impetus in 1993 at the maiden Ogoni Day celebration at which event Shell, the oil company most implicated in the decimation of the Ogoni environment, was declared persona non grata in Ogoniland. The present ultimatum was issued at a rally held to mark the 23rd anniversary of the epochal Ogoni Day on 4 January 2016.
Characterising the slow track on which the implementation process appears to be stuck as perpetuating genocide against the Ogoni people may appear to be rather strong language, but what are the true implications of continued inaction? Disease, poverty and very high mortality rates.
The level of pollution in Ogoni is absolutely astonishing. One can easily become dizzy, just stepping into some of the communities due to the heavy cloak of hydrocarbons fumes hanging in the air. Oil spills clog the streams, creeks and swamps and in some places dribbles of the noxious substance are found along community footpaths. Making matters worse is the fact that some of the spills that occurred years and decades ago have been either ignored or have been shoddily handled. Feeble attempts have been made at K-Dere to cover up decades old soil spill with soil.
Examples of crude covered environment dot the K-Dere, Bodo, Goi and other communities. What we see in Ogoni is sheer ecocide.
UNEP specifically called for emergency actions with regard to some of the heavily polluted areas such as Nisisioken Ogale. Here is what UNEP said in a press release issued on the occasion of the release of their report about five years ago:
“In at least 10 Ogoni communities where drinking water is contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons, public health is seriously threatened, according to the assessment that was released today.
“In one community, at Nisisioken Ogale, in western Ogoniland, families are drinking water from wells that is contaminated with benzene– a known carcinogen–at levels over 900 times above World Health Organization guidelines. The site is close to a Nigerian National Petroleum Company pipeline.
“UNEP scientists found an 8 cm layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater which serves the wells. This was reportedly linked to an oil spill which occurred more than six years ago.
“While the report provides clear operational recommendations for addressing the widespread oil pollution across Ogoniland, UNEP recommends that the contamination in Nisisioken Ogale warrants emergency action ahead of all other remediation efforts.”
The clean up of Ogoni environment will not be a 100m sprint, but a marathon requiring 25-30 years of dedicated work to accomplish. We are inching towards the five years mark since the alarm bells sounded at the release of the UNEP report. It is five months since President Buhari announced he would fast-track the implementation of the report. We cannot see anything happening on the ground, as attested to by MOSOP.
Dwindling oil revenue should not be an excuse for not cleaning up the environment of Ogoniland, the Niger Delta and other polluted places in Nigeria. It should rather be an impetus for taking the clean up challenge and punishing polluters who are hooked on habitually corrupting our environment. Ecological corruption is more deadly than financial corruption as it sentences whole communities of humans and other species to ill health and death.
Let the clean up shift form the slow track to the announced fast track. And let the 30-day ultimatum be an encouragement to do so. The Ogoni people have been supremely patient and further testing of their patience would not be the best way to go.
By Nnimmo Bassey (Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation – HOMEF)
The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) has urged the Federal Government to immediately commence the implementation of the recommendations of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the clean-up of Ogoniland.
MOSOP President, Legborsi Pyagbara
MOSOP President, Legborsi Pyagbara, who made the submission on Monday (January 4, 2016) at the 23rd anniversary of Ogoni Day in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, issued a 30-day ultimatum to government to implement the report.
Pyagbara declared that the Ogoni people would not relent in embarking on protests if government failed to meet their demand, even as he lamented that the people of the area were tired over the continued delay in implementing the UNEP recommendations.
The MOSOP boss warned that Ogoni people would take to the streets in peaceful protests after the expiration of the 30-day ultimatum until the UNEP report was implemented. He described as pathetic a situation where the FG had refused to carry out the instructions of UNEP on the clean-up of Ogoniland more than four years after the recommendation was made.
His words: “As part of Ogoni Project 2015, we began a multifaceted campaign involving protest, letter writing campaigns, media advocacy and international advocacy for the implementation of the UNEP report.
“We commend the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government for the renewed interest in the UNEP report and his approval of the fast-track actions for the implementation of the report.
“However, we are seizing this opportunity to remind the government that the unusual delay for the take-off of the project is becoming unbearable and indeed taxing our patience.
“We urge the Federal Government to, without further delay, bring into being the announced structures and the roadmap for the implementation of the report that respect the sensibilities of the communities.
“The ongoing delay on the part of the government will continue to be seen as an act of genocide being committed against the Ogoni people. We are giving the Federal Government a 30-day ultimatum to commence the implementation of the report or we will take up a series of non-violent measures to press for our demand.”
Chairman on the occasion, Prof. Ben Naanen, called on the people of the area to form a united front in order to achieve the struggle of the implementation of the UNEP report.
Naanen vowed that the struggle for the actualisation of the freedom of the Ogoni would not stop until their demands were met.
Additionally, Pyagbara called on the Rivers State Government to commence the dualisation of Saakpenwa Road as it promised during a campaign in the area. According to him, the road would boost the economic well-being of the people of the area if it was dualised.
He urged the youths to desist from behaviour that could sabotage the struggle of the ancestors of the land.
Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, promised that the government would soon commence the construction of Saakpenwa Road.
Wike, who was represented at the event by his Commissioner for Housing, Emma Okah, disclosed that the dualisation project would start before the end of January.
Many may be wondering what informed the title of this piece particularly the term “genetic modification” or more appropriately “genetic engineering”. The choice is simple: to join the discussion and highlight what an earlier article captioned: “What they do not tell you about genetic modification (II)”, published by Dr. Kabril az-Zubair on page 33 of the Sunday Trust newspaper on 20th December, 2015.
From his credentials, Dr. az-Zubair is a molecular biologists and teaches Microbiology at the Cambridge University, United Kingdom. His profile also revealed that, before proceeding to the UK, he served as director under the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) and later lectured at the University of Abuja.
In the aforementioned publication, he gave many reasons why genetic modification is bad and should not be adopted. First, his grievance is that the biggest promoter of genetic modified organisms (GMOs) globally is the US-based Corporation known as Monsanto, and the US government. He described their interest as intertwined, and regretted that many governments including Nigeria actually enacted laws allowing Monsanto to perpetrate a market strategy that threaten both conventional farming methods and food security generally.
His other quarrel raised against GM is that most of its protagonists are those who either have direct or indirect link with Monsanto. He concluded by challenging the claim by protagonists that GM foods truly are safe for human consumption and referred to such claim as “utter nonsense”.
Like earlier stated, my involvement in this discourse is simply to bridge the knowledge divide created by this publication and many others maybe out of omission or for self-serving reasons. Experiences from various countries where GMOs have successfully been deployed especially in agriculture, reveal that people resist modern biotechnology primarily either because they lack understanding on the science of genetic engineering or others like social cum religious and political reason, which truly have nothing to do with security and safety of the technology. But, if I am correct, it is only fair to assume based on his background that the author should better be informed on this science, as well as its application.
However, I beg to disagree that GMOs are “utter nonsense” as argued by Dr. az-Zubair. Pharmaceutical “GMO” precedes agricultural “GMO” by several decades. We rely on biotechnology for many lifesaving medicines, the first of which was human insulin. Since 1978, human insulin has been produced using bacteria engineered with the human insulin gene. It is a much better product because bovine and porcine insulin vary slightly in their composition as compared to human insulin. It is a lifesaver for Type I and insulin dependent diabetics. Because these products are highly regulated, implications of referring to them as utter nonsense contradict reason.
Let’s be clear – “GMO” or “crop biotechnology” isn’t a food, it is a plant breeding process. It is the process of introducing a new traitto a specific plant or seed. It is similar to traditional breeding, hybridisation, radiation or chemical mutagenesis. It is the same method by which conventional and organic seeds are improved. The difference between crop biotechnology and traditional farming is that, GM is a more specific, less random method of bringing out a trait such as drought tolerance or virus resistance in a specific crop.
One of the challenges preventing the easy adoption and use of modern biotechnology mostly in agriculture cardinally revolves around the availability and dissemination of adequate science based information, as against the argument and fears usually raised by anti-GM campaigners concerning the environmental and health safety of products. What those who are not in support of genetic modification are not telling the public is that “since farmers planted the first set of GM crops in 1996, there have been no documented safety issues” till the time of this write up. They always fail or perhaps to beef-up their point intentionally refuse to tell the public that GM crops undergo more testing and oversight than any other agricultural products, and, that their safety is well-established by several studies and years of real world experience.
Many anti-GM advocates always focus their attention on and build their arguments around the business dynamics of agro Corporations, government regulations and loss sight of the potential benefits associated with the technology. Yes, Monsanto and US government maybe the highest promoter of modern biotechnology practices but, in reality, the concept of this technology surpasses all business strategies that could ever be introduced by any business Corporation, or national government.
In Nigeria, well over 70 million farmers are estimated to benefit and experience economic transformation similar to Brazil, India, Burkina Faso, Egypt, South Africa and Sudan if GMOs and safe modern biotechnology practices are effectively deployed. Additionally, 25, 000 jobs are also projected to be created annually, and considerably help reduce Nigeria’s environmental footprint to achieve global target.
All over the world, we have seen significant savings in pesticides, improvement in inputs and soils management, and ultimately, how GM products have enabled farms to become sustainable especially in mitigating impacts of climate change on food production. So, GM certainly hasn’t proven to be utter non-sense for countries that have adopted the technology as many are forced to believe.
Truth be told, the perception that GM foods are not safe for consumption just because Monsanto and the US government are at the forefront of championing the technology is too simplistic to influence any constructive mind. At this time in our nation building, when informed people are required to help enhance capacity and disseminate accurate science based information to enable the public understand, adopt and benefit from the huge potentials of GMOs, it is highly pathetic that someone like Dr. az-Zubair, who expectedly should better be informed about modern biotechnology having occupied very high ranking position at NABDA and contributed to the enactment of several legislations is now the one raising the anti-GM flag.
To have limited the safety of GMOs to Monsanto and the US government evidently violate the principle of balancing, a fundamental element in writing. Psychologically, such error normally occurs when the writer is dominated by one side, as against the facts of the story.
In conclusion, we as individuals have a range of tolerance for change and for innovation. Some are early adopters, out there trying the newest and the latest technology. Others are more skeptical, a sort of “wait and see” approach for innovation and technology. Therefore, let this serve as wake-up call to all institutions mostly government involved in GM businesses to rise to the occasion and engage the public with adequate and accurate science based information, this is so because, such information may become the only tool available at their disposal to defend themselves when those who are not in support of GM tries to force their message on them.
By Etta Michael Bisong (Coordinator, Journalists for Social Development Initiative – JSDI)
With the delay in proposed clean-up of the Ogoni environment, no seriousness to halt gas flaring and with the continued piling of more pollution, there should be a new ecological consciousness on the part of citizens in the New Year, says activist Nnimmo Bassey, who is Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)
Forests and wetlands have been set on fire as oil companies and their contractors try to hide oil spills…
Perhaps the most horrendous crude oil pipeline incident of 2015 was an explosion that occurred on 9 July while repairs of a damaged pipeline was ongoing at Azuzuama, along Nigerian Agip Oil Company’s Tebidabe-Clough Creek route. The explosion and raging inferno occurred during a Joint Inspection Visit (JIV) embarked on to determine the cause of an ongoing oil spill there. The explosion and ensuing inferno claimed at least 14 lives, including those of two government officials. The tragedy was followed by contentious processes of identifying the victims and according them decent burial – a near impossible due to reported reticence of Agip and the fact that some of the victims were burnt to ashes.
In reaction to the Azuzuana tragedy, Iniruo Wills, the Commissioner for Environment in Bayelsa State said, “It is time to declare a State of Emergency on the Environment in the Bayelsa State in particular and the Niger Delta in general, in order to save the lives of our people and the future of our communities. For the people of Bayelsa State and especially the families of the victims and staff of the Bayelsa State Ministry of Environment, July 2015 will go down as the July of death, on account of the needless deaths inflicted upon our beloved ones and colleagues by the Nigeria’s environmentally irresponsible oil and gas industry… We are grieving, but we must now also insist yet again that it is time to take decisive action to stop this perilous hazard that has become a routine threat to life and ecology in Bayelsa State and the Niger Delta.”
We recall that in 2000, a fire resulting from a faulty machine claimed the lives of 18 youths that were assisting in repair works along the Agip’s Brass-Ogoda pipeline. On 29 July 2012 another fire erupted along the same company’s pipeline at Ayambele/Kalaba community. At this 2012 incident 16 persons, including military personnel and community youths, narrowly escaped death.
Haphazard treatment of oil spills has remained a worrisome trend in the oil fields of the Niger Delta. Forests and wetlands have been set on fire as oil companies and their contractors try to hide oil spills. In other instances, attempts have been made to cover up crude oil spills with imported soils or simply by turning the soil at the point of incident. These futile efforts have left horrific environmental scars across the oil field communities of the region.
Several oil spills have been reported by community field monitors. We will pick examples from the last six months.
A major spill occurred on Christmas Day at Agip’s Tebidaba Well 9 at Ikebiri. As the crude spewed into the fragile ecosystem the community was faced with the dilemma of either permitting the oil company to shut down the polluting well or to wait for a JIV before any shut down was permitted. However, shut down was effected to save the environment. The visit comprising officials from NOSDRA, Agip, security personnel, State Ministry of Environment and community representatives, was conducted on 27 December 2015 only to be declared as inconclusive, to the chagrin of the community. An earlier JIV following a spill that occurred at the same oil well in November 2014 was equally declared to be inconclusive and nothing has been heard of it ever since.
Erosion of confidence in regulatory agencies is extremely dangerous in a highly polluted environment such as the Niger Delta. It should be noted that the equipment used for tests during the JIVs are often provided by the oil companies involved.
Community monitors are rapidly losing confidence in regulatory agencies over their handling of oil spill incidents.
“How do they expect us to have confidence in them if they cannot say the simple truth of what they saw? They are all bad and criminal-minded folks who ought to be neutral but fail to be so. I will never trust the regulators again; whether from NOSDRA, DPR or Ministry of Environment,” fumed a community leader at Ikebiri. Erosion of confidence in regulatory agencies is extremely dangerous in a highly polluted environment such as the Niger Delta. It should be noted that the equipment used for tests during the JIVs are often provided by the oil companies involved.
Shell notched some spills within the period, notably the ones at Odau community on 2 June 2015 and at Adibawa Well 8 on 12 July 2015. The spill at Odau, in Rivers State, spread to Oruma/Yibama community in Bayelsa State. The spilt crude went up in flames some months later, causing severe environmental damage in the Oruma/Yibama community. These incidents highlight the cross-border nature of environmental pollution and the consequences of environmental impunity.
A significant dimension was also highlighted by the multiple spills close to the Okordia Manifold at Ikarama community on 12 August 2015. Terror was unleashed on Ikarama community following that spill and some community members including the paramount ruler were arrested and detained. The arrests were peacefully protested by Ikarama women. Disagreement over surveillance contact arrangement between Shell and community youths was fingered in the incidents and resultant conflict.
Crude oil from ExxonMobil’s offshore facilities washed up on the shores of Ibeno, Akwa Ibom State in November 2015 with tales of woes for shoreline communities.
Another Agip spill was noticed by community monitors when they saw spreading crude in the creeks of Emago-Kugbo on 12 July 2015. The spill site was reportedly set ablaze on 25 July. A community a farmer, Dumani Lucky, was burned and choked to death as he attempted to boat through the polluted area to his farm.
A monitor captured the situation this way, “The fire also burnt the barge, tug boat and other equipment mobilised for the clamping by Agip or company contractor. In fact, the tug boat sank and is now only serving as an anchor to the barge. After they set the spill site ablaze the whole community environment was as dark as if there was no sun. People had to stay indoors to avoid the smoke. Visibility only improved from midday. Later that day we had a heavy rainfall and the entire community was flooded with dark water. We don’t know what to do because Agip has been treating us badly for so long a time.”
Death, ecological destruction and inconclusive JIVs portend more harm to the Niger Delta environment. With the delay in proposed clean-up of the Ogoni environment, no seriousness to halt gas flaring and with the continued piling of more pollution, we have to construct a new ecological consciousness on the part of citizens. This consciousness must necessarily include tough resistance to so-called inconclusive JIVs – a not so clever way of blaming the victims and claiming that oil spills are caused by third party interferences rather than putrid pipelines and ill-maintained equipment. The new consciousness should include constant monitoring and reporting and insistence on urgent clean-ups and strict liability on the part of polluters.
I intended to share a Happy New Year greeting, but we are concerned about the survival of our environment and peoples. Nevertheless, have a watchful New Year!
No fewer than two followers of EnviroNews Nigeria based in The Philippines have posted social media messages, pledging to be environment friendly in their day-to-day activities in order to save Mother Earth.
Both Mitzumi M. Baguhin and Darlene Joy N. Bangquiao (or Jane Yodrel) are encouraging family members, neighbours and friends around the world to take action and make little changes that will recover resource, reduce waste, ensure a cleaner environment and, ultimately, curb emission. They want such actions to be taken “before it is too late.”
While commending the duo, EnviroNews welcomes more of such declaration and commitment.
Mitzumi Baguhin
Mitzumi Baguhin (Save Mother Earth Environmental Awareness Group): “I Mitzumi E. Baguhin do pledge to segregate my garbage, to reduce my waste and to throw my garbage in the proper place. To save Mother Earth, I would also encourage my friends and neighbours to do it. Through this, I can save millions of people in a simple way. #DoitNowBeforeitsTooLate.”
Darlene Joy N. Bangquiao (Jane Yodrel)
Darlene Joy N. Bangquiao (or Jane Yodrel) (Earth Hour Environmental Working Group): “I Darlene Joy N. Bangquiao hereby pledge to save our dear Mother Earth. By throwing my garbage in the proper place, conserving water, and turning off the light if its not needed. The above-mentioned are just small actions, but their collective impact will be great. So, my co mammals, lets all do the actions now before it’s too late.”
The flooding situation at the Evbuotubu Primary School has entered its 12th year, but there is nothing to show that help is in sight for these children
It was 10:00am or thereabout. Abies, a pupil of Evbuotubu Primary School, has just been asked out of the class. She had been down with illness and has not been in school for about a week and half now. Her peasant mother said the nurses at the health centre (not too far from the school premises) had diagnosed malaria. But it looks like there is more to it than meets the eyes.
Abies (not her real name) managed to show up in school today but, midway between her classes, she began to throw up. The “Arithmetic Auntie” (subject teacher) had asked the six-year-old girl to go out of the class so as not to vomit inside the jam-packed classroom and possibly infect the other pupils.
…Your belle dey pain you? …your belle dey pain you?
She had barely reached the corridor when her bosom friend and playmate, Kate (not her real name) also in Primary 2, saw her in an unusual position and gestured curiously. “… your belle dey pain you?” Kate queried her friend in pidgin English, meaning “…is your belly aching?’’ But Abies was busy battling to keep well. She held her stomach a second time in split seconds and resumed her vomiting. “Doe o!” Kate quipped in vernacular, connoting “Sorry!” “Your belle dey pain you?” she asked a second time, inquisitively. “No. E dey turn me and I dey feel cold,” Abies managed to reply at last but instantly resumed the battle for her health.
The day was Thursday, September 27, 2012. The rains have refused to stop and the daily misery, environmental and health hazards and pains borne by inhabitants and indigenes of this expansive community and their immediate neighbours in Egor L.G.A., Edo State are now a normal ritual; and if the predictions by environment and climate change experts were anything to be taken seriously, the following year’s rains and its resultant flooding, erosion menace and health havocs would be worse than the 2012 experience – just as the current year’s rains and its resultant floods had eclipsed the 2011 flood furies in this part of the Edo State.
Here at Evbuotubu Community, the worst hit victims are schoolchildren: the submerged school buildings threaten to collapse on the helpless children and their teachers. Or, at least, an imminent epidemic might break out sooner or later.
Lectures in progress, under the mercy of mosquitoes and water-borne diseases
The vice headmistress of the school remarked: “If you are old in this community you will know that the main problem of this school is the community and their leaders. In all my 33 years as a teacher I have been transferred to several communities. I have never seen a community that hates to develop. Here you have a problem that has deteriorated for several years, and yet you couldn’t do anything about it as a community; instead, you are adding to the problems. All they are good and fast at is recklessly selling lands without considering the impacts on the land. They keep selling off lands indiscriminately….”
She continued, “Anywhere in the world whenever you want to sell community lands, you first of all consider three basic things: you consider school, market and hospital – these basic essential needs of the people. But here, the community leaders and the people don’t care about all of these provided they get money. And you were asking me, you want to find out if mosquitoes bite pupils and if teachers are comfortable working under this condition. I think such questions should not arise at all. From my little knowledge of elementary science, we were taught the various reproduction stages of mosquitoes breeding and multiplying and we were taught that pools of standing water is the breeding ground for mosquitoes. How much more this river and lake of erosion that has taken over the entire school compound for several years!”
What is left of the school compound the children have to use for recreation and urination, etc
The flooding situation at the Evbuotubu Primary School has entered its 12th year, but there is nothing to show that help is in sight for these children. Year after year they learn under mosquito-infested environment. Their entire school premises have been overtaken by flood and bushes. The school buildings are gradually submerged in flood water.
More embarrassing is the fact that, without a single rebuke from any teacher or school head, these children daily urinate freely on the flood water and everywhere around the few plain spots of land that show up on the school compound once the flood water wanes a little; and they, in turn, swim in the infected water, eat food and snacks that fall on the infected ground, and inhale all the stench and putrid odors emanating from the accumulated urine (and excreta) all around the undesirable environment.
They have no access to drinking water, no functional latrine and no playing field for recreation. And because children must play, they have turned private properties in adjoining roads and people’s compounds around the community into their playing fields, and play with gadgets without any checks from the school authorities. Obviously out of the view and control of the school authorities, many of these pupils get injured in the process. They are badly-influenced and sometimes even bullied or abused with much impunity by some bad elements in the community.
The negative impact of the situation on the health, psychology, and self-esteem of these children at Evbuotubu Primary School and indeed the overall academic output and effectiveness of both teachers and pupils are undermined by the recurrent cases of pupils’ absentees, truancy, and illnesses like malaria and other water-related diseases such as that which Abies and many other children in the school daily have to contend with.
On Friday, October 11, 2012, I finally met with the Head Mistress of Evbuotubu Primary School, Ogbomo Roselyn Uyi.
Her words: “We are appealing to the comrade governor, Adams Oshiomhole, to please come to our aid here. The community, if I may say, they have really tried their best to make sure that this flood is removed from here. So, a special appeal now, from the head teacher, the staff and the pupils, for the governor to please assist us. We know the work load on him is too much but he should please address our own.”
After about 14 months of worsening environmental and health condition of the school and its pupils/teachers, I encountered with the newly appointed Chairman of Evbuotubu Community, Isaiah Eghobamien, at his residence, one Monday morning in 2014.
He disclosed: “We’ve been crying over this erosion problem over the years, even before we came on board. The State Government did not respond to us at all. There is nothing they did here. All previous administrations promised, and all their promises were in vain – they did not keep to their promise; even the present one. So, you can see by yourself; we’ve been cut off from the city.
“Honestly, that of the Primary school, we went there several times, even the State Governor went there himself. The Local Government chairman of recent went there. We were to relocate those children now, but God being on our side, we’ve given land out to build another school. We’ve even bulldozed the whole area, graded the whole land where we proposed they should build the Primary School. But, up till now, they’ve not come. So, we are looking up to the State Government, because it’s beyond the Local Government; the way things are now in Evbuotubu, it’s beyond the Local Government, honestly! But let the Local Government on their own do a little bit they can do. Like what you said – that of the road. Honestly, the Local Government gave us N500,000. And we spent well over N5 million in the grading of the roads.
“The rest of the money came through our communal efforts. Because we had to hire graders, we hired pale-loaders, we hired excavators, and we hired tippers. You can see that, in a day, we spent more than N500,000 in hiring grader, pale-loader, excavator, then tippers to sand-fill the whole area.
“Well, the best we can do is that land we’ve given to them. I cannot take them to my house, my house cannot accommodate the children, nobody’s house can accommodate the children. There is no way we can accommodate the children as of now; but all I’m saying is the State Government should please expedite action before the full rainy season steps in.”
In February, 2015, I was at Evbuotubu Primary School on a follow up visit to see the school head over the flooding/health challenges of the schoolchildren and the community leaders’ claim of providing a new land for government to relocate the school.
The new headmistress revealed that the that the parcel of land the Evbuotubu Community leadership claimed to have provided for relocation of the school was rejected by the State Government because it was considered too small and the location is not conducive for a school. According to her, government said if the community provided a better land today they (government) will immediately develop it and build a new school.
This year, a Chinese company plans to open a massive factory to clone 100,000 cows. Just how far will this mass reproductive technology go?
Cows. Photo credit: telegraph.co.uk
Two decades after the birth of Dolly the sheep—the world’s first successfully cloned mammal—the year 2016 will likely see the rise of mass-produced animal clones, thanks to an enterprising and madcap scientist in China.
Sometime in the next year, a company called Boyalife Genomics will open a massive factory in the coastal Chinese city of Tianjin, where it plans to clone 100,000 cattle per year—a way to address the Middle Kingdom’s rising appetite for beef. Eventually, the company aims to clone 1 million cattle a year, as well as other animals like champion racehorses and drug-sniffing dogs.
Cloned humans—or as Boyalife’s founder Xiao-Chun Xu calls them, “Frankensteins”—are not on the menu. Not yet.
Xu’s ultramodern factory—its layout is bigger than three football fields—is the latest manifestation of the sci-fi cloning craze that’s seen members of a Florida nonprofit try to clone a 2000-year-old tree, and a South Korean company clone two puppies in an attempt to reincarnate a British couple’s beloved dead dog.
Of course, scraping bark from a tree or sending in a vial of your dog’s DNA is far different from churning out 100,000 identical cattle. That level of efficiency, and speed is unprecedented, and Xu hopes it will change the future of animal reproduction.
The Chinese-born doctor, with a Ph.D. from Washington University and an MBA from Emory, is part nerdy scientist, part businessman, with that rare combination of brains and street smarts. After working as a project manager at Pfizer, he moved back to China where, in 2009, he founded a massive stem-cell database with the help of seven research institutes.
Three years later, Xu founded Boyalife Group, a $2 billion venture with four locations and 22 subsidiaries—the newest is Boyalife Genomics. While acting as founder and CEO of Boyalife, Xu is also an adjunct professor of molecular medicine at Peking University, where he’s heralded as an expert in everything from arthritis to oncology.
Prior to the announcement of his new cloning factory, the 44-year-old Xu had remained out of the global spotlight. But with the news that his Tianjin venture hopes to clone more mammals in a year than humanity has managed to clone in the previous 200,000, his phone has started ringing off the hook.
Cloning, or asexual reproduction, is a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature. A number of plants, bacteria, and single-celled organisms reproduce this way. Fungi, for example, split in two; strawberries grow clones of themselves on their stems.
Artificial cloning, which Xu’s team will use to make cattle, is decidedly more complicated. The science world recognizes three types of cloning: genetic, therapeutic, and reproductive. It’s the last one that’s used to clone whole animals, through a process called nuclear transfer.
To do this, researchers replace the DNA from a new cell with that of an animal they intend to clone. Eventually the modified egg is placed inside an adult female who later gives birth to the clone. While researchers reportedly cloned frogs as early as the 1950s, scientists weren’t able to successfully clone a mammal until decades later.
It was three scientists at the University of Edinburgh who achieved the feat, with the birth of a cloned sheep in 1996—the only one to succeed out of 277 attempts to live. The clone was named Dolly because it was made from the cell of a mammary gland and the researchers “couldn’t think of a more impressive pair than Dolly Parton’s.
In the next four years, cloning as a science took off, with researchers producing successful clones of a Rhesus monkey, cow, goat, and more. Today a number of companies exist to clone animals, with some focused on farm livestock like bulls and cows, and others on an increasingly big business: family dogs.
The largest of these companies, Sooam Biotech, has reportedly cloned 700 puppies since opening in 2004. The South Korean firm actually paired with Xu to create Boyalife Genomics, but in an email to The Daily Beast, declined to comment on the new venture. But if its devotion to cloning dogs is any indication, it could play a big role in Boyalife’s future.
Yet even as companies like Sooam grow in popularity, anxiety has mounted around the idea of how far cloning could go. One of Sooam’s own researchers, Hwang Woo-suk, once alleged that he had cloned human embryos. The claim hassince been struck down, but the fear associated with it definitely has not.
While the general public weighs the pros and cons of animal cloning, the legal world is doing the same. In the U.S., cloning of farm animals is legal—with the Federal Drug Administration declaring that these clones are as “safe as the food we eat every day.”
The same is true in China, but not everywhere. In August, the European Union edged closer to outlawing the practice all together, with the EU Parliament voting in favor of a sweeping cloning ban that would include farm animals.
Meanwhile, laws surrounding the cloning of humans remain murky. In the U.S., there is no federal law explicitly banning human clones—which is not to say that the practice is wholly legal. At least 15 states have passed legislation regarding human cloning—eight of which prohibit it entirely. The UN General Assemblybanned the practice in 2005 and the science world as a whole rejects it as unethical and unsafe.
Leaders at The National Academy of Science have been petitioning for a worldwide ban on the practice since 2002, calling it “dangerous and likely to fail.” Among other outspoken organizations are the American Medical Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the FDA.
During a 2002 congressional hearing on human cloning, a researcher named Rudolf Jaenisch spelled out why he believed animal cloning was too dangerous to mimic in humans. Successful animal clones, he said, are preceded by many failed attempts. Those that make it are often plagued with health issues.
Indeed, reproductive cloning in animals—the same type that could in theory be used on humans—comes with immense risk. The percentage of cloning efforts that succeed is generally between 1 and 4 percent. In the few clones that survive, birth defects abound—ranging from brain deficiencies to drastically shortened life spans.
And even though he plans to clone 1 million cows one day, Xu, like the majority of his scientific peers, says he is gravely against the concept of human clones. “No, we don’t do human cloning, we won’t make Frankensteins,” Xu told NBC. “The technology we have is very advanced… [but] every technology has to have a boundary.”
Fresh from attending the UN Climate Change Conference in France (that produced the famous Paris Agreement), Environment Minister, Amina Mohammed, embarked on a nationwide tour of environmentally infamous locations in an apparent bid to assess the gravity of the challenges and interact with the concerned communities. The tour took her to states such as Lagos (South West), Imo/Anambra (South East), Rivers (South South), Kano/Jigawa (North West) and Yobe/Borno (North East). This piece highlights her trip to the North West and North East regions.
On lands encroached by the desert in the North
Kano
On the 18th December, Minister of Environment, Mrs Amina Mohammed, and the Minister of State, with a team made up of the Permanent Secretary, Director General, Great Green Wall, CSOs representative and other staffers of the ministry embarked on an assessment of the environmentally impacted locations the North West Zone of Nigeria. The team was received by the Deputy Governor of Kano State Prof. Hafiz Abubakar. The Minister stated her mission to conduct a rapid assessment to the state of environment to enable her have a first-hand information, for informed decision making, planning and designing intervention strategies at all levels while seeking partnership with the State and Local Government Authorities towards the Change agenda. She underlined the need for genuine collaboration of all stakeholders that will ensure ownership and the sustainability of the investments being made now and in the future that will set the course for empowering people, tackling climate change and protecting the environment.
Prof Abubakar informed his guests of the challenges faced by the state ranging from desertification, industrial pollution and solid waste management as well as the heavily polluted Jankara Dam, which has been a source of livelihood to many.
Inspecting the Sharada industrial pollution site in Kano
Sharada Industrial Site
On 19th December 2015, the team visited Sharada Industrial Area and the dump site where there is direct discharge of effluents from tanneries into bodies of water. Most of these wastewaters are extremely complex mixtures containing inorganic and organic compounds. The tannery operation consists of converting the raw hide or skin into leather, which are used in the manufacturing of a wide range of products. Consequently, the tanning industries are potentially pollution-intensive. Aside from the industrial waste, another major environmental issue is the resultant effect from improper disposal and poor management of solid waste which are also dumped on the same vast land in Sharada in Kano and, because of poor management, the waste emits dangerous gases into the atmosphere and bacterial which contains bacteria. The team was informed that though most of the industries are Lebanese, Chinese and Nigeria owned and have primary treatment plants, only few were however functioning and therefore the need for a secondary treatment was of paramount importance and this can only be done with the partnership of federal and state governments, and the industries. The team also visited the tributaries of River Challawa, which is a source of livelihood for millions of people engaged in fishing activities but now heavily polluted with the industrial and solid waste.
Fata Tanning Industry
The team visited the Fata Tanning Industry, one of the biggest industries in Challawa industrial area and was informed that the company was set 10 years ago and deals mostly with skin, and gets its raw materials from Nigeria and the neighbouring countries of Niger, Cameroon and Chad. The team inspected the primary treatment plant but observed the need for the secondary treatment as the effluents from the primary treatment are also discharged directly into the Sharada dump site. It is apparent that so much needs to be done towards ameliorating the industrial and solid waste problems in Kano.
Galadi Desertification Project
Desertification is one of the most serious environmental and socio-economic problems of our time. Desertification describes circumstances of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions resulting from the climatic variation and human activities. In other to address the problem of desertification, the Federal Government of Nigeria along with other countries, put together a programme called the Great Green Wall initiative, the fundamental goal of this programme is to assess the effects of desertification, design and implement projects that would comb the effects of desertification, empower people, build and strengthen the capacity of the communities and enhance their adaptive and indigenous technological ways of addressing the problems in the 11 frontline states in the northern region of Nigeria and the neighbouring countries.
It is to be noted that the present threat of desertification in the Sahel has reached an alarming stage where crops cultivation and animal rearing/grazing are no more productive, soil has lost its nutrient/fertility, various infrastructure have given way because of windstorm from the neighbouring Niger Republic and sand dunes have taken over. The team visited one of the GGW projects located in Galadi, Jigawa State to access the level of implementation.
Hadejia Nguru Wetland
The Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands is a part of the flood plain of the Komadougou-Yobe River Basin in the Lake Chad basin in the north-east of Nigeria and is considered to be a source of livelihood to probably about 25 million people to an internationally shared water whose management has an important bearing on diplomatic relationships between Nigeria and four neighbouring countries that share the Lake Chad Basin (Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic).
The wetlands have formed where the waters of the Hadejia and Jama’are rivers meet the lines of ancient sand dunes aligned northeast-southwest. An area of confused drainage has formed here, with multiple river channels and a complex pattern of permanently and seasonally flooded land and dryland. The wetlands are nationally and internationally important for migratory waterfowl. The wetlands support extensive wet-season rice farming, flood-recession agriculture and dry-season irrigation. The flood plain also supports large numbers of fishing communities most of whom also farm, and is grazed by very substantial numbers of Fulani livestock, particularly cattle, which are brought in from both north and south in the dry season. There is also an important dispatch from the wetlands of fuelwood and fodder for horses. In view of the importance attached to this wetland which is being heavily impacted by the climate change effects, the Minister and her team felt, it was important to visit the area.
Head of the Great Green Wall project explained that over the years the wetlands have been affected by developments some attributed to the construction of the Tiga Dam on a tributary of the Hadejia River in the early years of the 1970s which has exacerbated the effects of the low rainfall of the last two decades. The result has been a reduction in the extent of flooding in the wetland. The growth of human population throughout the region is a reality that has led to increased agricultural activity to feed the teeming population, combined with changing climatic patterns over the years, the result has been an increased pressure on water resources in the basin.
One consequence to changes in the flow pattern of the river is increased siltation, particularly around the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands areas. Invasive Typha grass, which has flourished in the regulated river, has compounded the problem, leading to flooding of the major road linking the six states. Poor management of the dams also often results in excessive flooding of farmlands, schools and villages, leading to loss of lives and properties. The problems in the Nguru Wetland are also part of the broader regional problems with managing water resources, Lake Chad itself is in critical condition, and has shrunk to just a tiny fraction of its historical size.
Karasawa LGA
Fajanari community has an estimated population of 1,000 and, based on the population and in order to ameliorate the sufferings of the community people, the GGW decided on a project site where a borehole powered with solar was sunk to serve the community. However, the leader of the Association stated that the water in the borehole is not enough to cater for livestock, crop cultivation, household chores as well as other domestic purposes. The farming programmes including planting of economic trees such as jatropha, mangoes, guava and local tobacco which is used for cosmetics.
According to the leader of the Karasawa Garina Guna Development Association, there is an urgent need for extensive training for the maintenance of the borehole as well as extension service workers, but most importantly provision of staff salaries. The journey to the the highest point of sand dunes took the team approximately three hours without any direct access road.
The minister said: “I really want to know the coping and adaptive initiatives of the communities especially women that have lived long with the menace of sand dunes and how I can enhance their indigenous technology and coping strategies.”
Yobe State Deputy Governor receiving Mrs Amina Mohammed in Damaturu
Yobe State
On the 20th December 2015, the team visited the Yobe State seat of power in Damaturu and was received by the Deputy Governor, Dr. Ibrahim Gaidam. Stating her mission to see, hear, feel and understand the adaptive strategies of the people, the minister informed Dr Gaidam that her objective stems from the fact that her ministry cannot do it alone but must partner with the state and local governments, CSOs, media, private sector and all other stakeholders in addressing the challenges and the change agenda of the government. She commended the people of Yobe State for staying strong despite the numerous environmental and socio-political challenges on ground.
Responding, the Deputy Governor thanked and applauded the ministers, stating that it was the first time a minister dared to travel to the desert encroached areas of Yobe despite the insecurity in the state. He enumerated some of the programmes that the state has designed to assist the people to include: tree planting, afforestation and reforestation, siblings and nursery production, distribution free of charge to CSOs, CBOs community members, woodlot production, shelterbelt production to protect farm lands and degraded soil, building capacity of farmers on wind erosion harvesting, boarder line farming and natural rejuvenation farming, oasis, a term used for shifting cultivation, gum Arabic, alternative sources of energy-briquetting stove, kerosene stove, saw dust stoves, gas cookers, and short term embankment along the tributaries of Lake Chad. According to him, the state also has programmes that specifically target women and these include working capital, enterprises training for young girls, including those out of school and illiterates.
An historic visit to Baga, Borno State
Baga Community
On the 20th December, 2015, the team in the company of the Deputy Governor of Borno State (Usman Durkwa), the Senator representing the area, the General Officer Commanding (Gen. Adesoun), journeyed to Baga community to see the Lake Chad tributaries and what has really become of it and what measures can be taken to address the situation.
The three-hour journey from Maiduguri took the team to Baga but could only stop by one of the tributaries as the entourage was warned against going any further from the point reached. Baga is a community that has been sacked by the Boko Haram insurgency and has since become a war zone involving the Nigerian Army and Boko Haram.
Findings
Desertification, which is affecting the 11 northern states, is considered as the most pressing environmental problem and accounts for about 73% out of the estimated total cost of about $5.110 billion per annum the country is losing arising from environmental degradation
Millions of Nigerians have lost their source of livelihoods due to climate change and environmental problems. However, some of them are man-made.
For decades the people from the northern Nigerian have lived with the menace of desertification and have used different mitigation and adaptive strategies which needs to be researched and promoted.
The activities of Boko Haram and indeed the violent conflicts in the region has hindered development, as development cannot strive in an environment that is not conducive.
The tributaries from Baga leading up to Lake Chad which in the past was a source of livelihood for millions of people is severely affected by the impact of climate change. It is drying up and has displaced many, thus forcing them to migrate to greener pastures with its attendant consequences.
The problems in the Nguru Wetland basin are part of a broader regional problem with managing water resources; Lake Chad itself is in critical condition, and has shrunk to just a tiny fraction of its original size.
The Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands – not only is it the premier Ramsar site in Nigeria but also a place of enormous economic and ecological importance to millions of people.
The result of the human factor has remained the major cause of desertification. Most of the arable land had been over-cultivated and also the land reserved for animal grazing had been subsumed by farmers leaving no portion for animal grazing. Most of the trees are either cut down for crop cultivation or for cook fuel.
Way out
There is also an urgent need to have a tripartite programme of dealing with the industrial waste which is a time bomb for the majority of the Kano residents.
Need to conduct research into the adaptive strategies of the communities especially in the desert prone areas of Yobe where sand dunes have taken over most parts of the state is urgently needed. This would provide information on how best to enhance the indigenous technology of dealing with the situation, while devising different strategies of solving the problems.
Public participation generates tangible benefits, by fostering cooperation in developing and implementing strategic actions.
Good political will involving the countries affected by the Lake Chad impact is imperative to back up sustainable development in the basin
To stop tree felling as a means of cooking fuel the government and indeed the private devise alternatives sources of renewable energy such conversion of animal waste into biogas, briquettes, fuel efficient stoves and cooking gas at a very subsidized rate for the people to be able to afford.
Afforestation and reforestation programmes are vital. In addition to producing fuelwood, the forest reserves and bushland of the flood plains yield important non-timber forest products that are significant to the livelihoods and subsistence of local communities. Some, including leaves, are important marketed commodities that generate substantial income.
Conclusion
It is globally acknowledged that environmental problems such as greenhouse warming, ozone depletion, soil erosion, desertification, chemicals management, acidic rain and water pollution, among others are directly or indirectly caused by the creation, operation, or disposal of the built environment undertaken by man. Climate change stress is leading almost directly to social stress; as resources decrease and human populations increase, migration and social fragmentation accelerate. These problems cannot be solved by government alone, but with the inclusion of all stakeholders.
By Priscilla Achakpa (Executive Director, Women Environmental Programme)
