• 
  

  Environmental Justice Struggles Engages Gear

  Monday, 8th April 2013

  In the last few days of my assumption of office as chief servant of ERA, I have reflected on the struggles for environmental justice in the last 20 years. Reliving the fervent spirit of the beginning has a pivotal vibe for the future. Then, four young environmentalists (Oronto Douglas, Nick Jones, Nnimmo Bassey, and I) were deeply conscious of mounting environmental degradation, neglect, poverty, misery and pains inflicted on the people of the Niger Delta from oil impact.  In founding ERA on January 11 1993 we shared a common desire to act spontaneously, socially and peacefully for the protection of the environment and the democratization of development, and to be a voice for the voiceless. Article 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights which states that: “all peoples shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development” was a guiding light. In what looked like a pioneering initiative, we anticipated that the ‘resource curse syndrome’ from the spirally environmental despoliation giving rise to social inequalities and grinding poverty could combine to unleash a backlash of insecurity and ignite rebellion against the state and the oil companies. Time rolled by, and how right were the predictions from the oil-insurgency!

• 
  

  Twenty years of fighting environmental crimes

  Tuesday, 19th March 2013

  Welcome words by Nnimmo Bassey,
  Executive Director, ERA/FoEN (1993-2013) at event to mark the 20th Anniversary
  
  It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this gathering marking the 20th anniversary of the Environmental Rights Action (ERA), which is also the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth International. ERA is also the host of Oilwatch International – the global South’s resistance network to reckless exploitation of fossil fuels.
  
  ERA began life as a project of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) around 1990.It began its early years while I was a member of its Board (1993-1999). It became an independent organisation when it became impossible for it to operate in the world of environmental networks while being anchored in the human rights community. The environment out of which it was born gave ERA the unique platform and character that forcefully pushed the fact that environmental rights are even more holistic than human rights because humans are merely a part of the environment and even though their rights are considered predominant this does not mean that theirs are necessarily superior to other beings or to nature herself.

• Open call to join the Climate Space at the World Social Forum in Tunisia

  Saturday, 16th March 2013

  The 2013 World Social Forum will be held this March 26-30 in Tunisia, where only two years ago, a revolution began and resulted into a historic change that created a ripple effect on the region. Now, Tunisia is an inspiration to movements both old and new, across the globe.

  It is with this inspiration, from the wave of changes and the rise of new movements with exciting new strategies and tactics that the idea of the Climate Space was born. The Climate Space will be a fixed space inside the World Social Forum 2013 in Tunisia to discuss the causes, impacts, struggles, alternatives and strategies to address climate change. It will be a venue with various workshops, debates and strategy sessions.

  We have lost too many important battles in the fight for climate justice that there is little time left for us to stop Mother Earth and humanity from falling off the precipice and into a future too dire to imagine. Climate change is already contributing to 400,000 deaths a year. Just these past few months we witnessed the devastation of the Southern Philippines with a typhoon so destructive that it killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands without homes or livelihoods, the extreme heat in Australia that gasoline would evaporate, and, the ruin that Hurricane Sandy wrought on Haiti, parts of Canada and the United States. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the body tasked with agreeing on a global deal that would halt our march into climate chaos, has, instead, protected business as usual and agreed on a deal that would burn the planet.

• 
  

  WHY SHELL MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS NIGER DELTA ECOCIDE

  Tuesday, 29th January 2013

  Four Nigerian farmers and fishermen who are victims of multinational oil giant Shell’s unrelenting polluting activities in the Niger Delta are striving for justice. The four Nigerian plaintiffs stand with supporters outside the court in The Hague. If their case against Shell is successful, it will be the first time that a Dutch multinational has been held accountable for environmental damage caused overseas. They have high hopes that on 30 January 2013 a Dutch court will issue a verdict in their favour as part of a ground-breaking legal case they filed against the Anglo-Dutch oil corporation.
  
  When, on 11 October 2012, the court in The Hague heard their case against Shell, it was the first time in history that a company was brought before a Dutch court to account for environmental damage caused overseas. Royal Dutch Shell’s pollution in Nigeria is caused by its subsidiary known as Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Nigeria. The company has faced several court cases in Nigeria and in the USA on charges of environmental and human rights abuse.

  Having Shell in the dock at The Hague sends a number of signals. For one, the days of ‘business as usual’ for multinational corporations may be drawing to a close. Secondly communities may expect some respite if the company assumes more responsible working practices. If the company has a change of attitude, oil workers would have easier community access and probably enjoy better protection from the same pollution that damages these communities.

• 
  

  KEY HEARING IN COURT CASE ON OIL GIANT SHELL'S NIGERIAN OIL POLLUTION

  Tuesday, 2nd October 2012

  For the first time in history, a European company, Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, will appear in a Dutch court to account for damage it caused abroad, Friends of the Earth International announced today. The court case against Shell's oil spills in Nigeria has been filed by four Nigerian plaintiffs in conjunction with Friends of the Earth Netherlands and supported by Friends of the Earth Nigeria.
  
  Lawyers for both parties will plea at a key hearing in The Hague on 11 October at 9:30am. [1] The verdict is expected early in 2013.

  “Nigerians have to sue Shell in The Netherlands to obtain justice. Meanwhile Shell uses the threat of legal action to attempt to silence legitimate protests, for instance the recent Greenpeace protests against Shell in Europe. They pollute with impunity, destroy livelihoods and block dissent. This is deplorable," says Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth Nigeria and Chair of Friends of the Earth International. “We want to see an end to the corporate crimes committed by oil giants like Shell in Nigeria and around the world,” he adds.

Go to other news

Draft Petroleum Industry Bill Not Strong on Environmental Protection

Frequently Asked Questions on the PIB document should be required basic reading for those seeking clarity on the issues.

Nature’s Resources

We need to remind ourselves at the outset that crude oil and gas are neither produced by oil companies or by communities that are sometimes erroneously labelled as oil producing communities. These fossil fuels have been produced by nature over thousands, if not millions of years. A correct way to understand natural resources is to humbly see them as Nature's resources. Drilling kilometres into the bowels of the earth actually is a violation of nature. It isn't wisdom or smartness.

Oil companies merely extract oil/gas. They never produce any. The Nigerian government collects oil/gas rents. The poor communities are best described as oil companies impacted communities.

The PIB ought to be predicated on the premise that the Petroleum Resources sector is a highly polluting sector. It should also have the clear understanding that the resources are non-renewable and are thus finite. It is not a resource that will be available or useful in perpetuity. They will either be exhausted or may simply fall out of use. This demands utmost care to ensure socially and environmentally acceptable practices. Acts that are socially and environmentally irredeemably contaminating ought to be shut down for the sake of present and future generations, irrespective of how lucrative they may be. Laws on environmental, social and related impact assessments suggest this.

Read this articleRead other Oil Politics articles