A Niger Delta Environmental Advocacy group has commenced training of hundreds of fishermen on Coastal Environmental Monitoring and Advocacy in Yenagoa, Bayelsa capital.
The capacity building
programme held in Yenagoa on Friday, is coming amidst ongoing oil and gas leaks
at Aiteo’s oilfields in Nembe and Conoil’s oil block at Sangana in neighbouring
Brass Local Government
The group, Health of
Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) drew participants from oil bearing communities
across Bayelsa.
Speaking to
participants, comprising fishermen, fisherwomen and those working in the fish
processing value chain, Mr Cadmus Ateke-Enade, Lead, Fossil Politics, HOMEF
noted that pollution from oil leaks poses great danger to public health.
He explained that the
environmental rights group aims to strenghted the knowledge base of
participants to engage in evidence based monitoring of the environment by
collecting data in an empirical way.
He said that beyond
health factors, the pollution from oil and gas is a threat to the traditional
fishing occupation of coastal communities in the Niger Delta region.
Ateke-Enade, who spoke
on the overview and sources of pollution urged the participants to share
experiences with participants from other communities to safeguard the
environment. .
Also Nr Alagoa Morris, a
resource person who spoke of monitoring techniques urged the participants to
harness the potentials on their smartphones which are embedded with valuable
features.
He noted that
smartphones and other inexpensive devices have inbuilt capacity to indicate the
precise location and coordinates of pollution incident sites which were
required to give credibility to the report.
Morris explained that
the ongoing leak at Aiteo’s Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 was made public by a
video footage shot by a fisherman who shared the incident on social media.
He commended HOMEF for
its advocacy for the environment by conducting the second training within the
year in Bayelsa in addition to similar campaigns in other states of the Niger
Delta region.
He noted that the
training was timely as it coincides with two ongoing pollution incidents in two
adjoining local governments in Bayelsa.
A participant from
Koluama 1 in Southern Ijaw Local Government, Chief Arthur Frank while sharing
his experiences noted that the Funiwa fields where the rig blow out of
2012 occurred was still releasing gas bubbles intermittently.
Also Mr Ikonikumo
Noel, Chairman, United Fishing Union of Sangana lamented that the ongoing
gas leak at Conoil’s facility near Sangana has crippled fishing with oil
workers evacuated from the plattform.
“The leakage and
pollution has polluted the waters and made the environment too toxic for fishes
to survive and we were forced to leave the waters, meanwhile the company
evacuated oil workers and left the community to grapple with the situation,” he
said.
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