EnvironmentalDamageAssessment-IUCN.docVIP

Niger Delta Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Project Phase 1 – Scoping Report Federal Ministry of Environment, Abuja Nigeria Conservation Foundation, Lagos WWF UK CEESP- IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy May 31, 2006 _______________________________________________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Fifty years after the discovery of oil in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, an independent team of experts from Nigeria, the UK, and the United States convened by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation concluded that the Niger Delta is one of the world’s most severely petroleum-impacted ecosystems. This conclusion was reached after a Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration scoping visit to the Niger Delta from May 21 – May 29, 2006. The team of experts, with participation by Nigeria’s Ministry of Environment, WWF UK and the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy visited Delta communities and spill-damaged sites in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states, met with community and youth leaders, and convened a 2-day workshop of leading government and non-governmental experts in Port Harcourt May 25 – 26.. The 70,000 square kilometers Niger Delta contains 7,400 of West Africa’s 20,000 square kilometers of mangroves, and is considered one of the 10 most important wetlands and marine ecosystems in the world. Millions of people depend upon the delta’s natural resources for survival, including the poor in many other West African countries who rely on the migratory fish from the Delta. The region contains many threatened species found nowhere else in the world, including several primates, ungulates and birds. Among the preliminary findings of the independent team were: An estimated 9 million – 13 million barrels (1.5 million tons) of oil has spilled in the Niger Delta ecosystem over the past 50 years, representing about 50 times the estimated volume spilled in the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska in 1989. Th