POLICIES ON ENVIRONMENT

A Critical Evaluation of Policies on Environment in Nigeria

A Critical Evaluation of Policies on Environment in Nigeria

Introduction

In Nigeria, in the Niger River Delta, oil and gas industry activities have continued to pose serious environmental problems affecting health, social and economic activities, sustainable development and ecological balance. The main environment effects oil and gas industry activities in the Niger Delta include:

Land Degradation;

Air Pollution;

Water Pollution;

Deforestation and

Ecosystem degradation, resulting in biodiversity loss as a result of damage to terrestrial and aguate life.

Though most of these effects are localized and most intense in the Niger Delta area, some, like air pollution, affect other parts of Nigeria perhaps even some neighboring countries. Similarly mangrove swamp and rain forest destruction can have long run consequences not only for the Niger Delta and other parts of the country but also for the entire world. This paper will going to critical evaluation of policies on environment in Nigeria, (Niger delta region). The paper introduces environmental policies and explains how it will analyze their formulation (why were they introduced) and implementation (why have they failed?). Paper focus will be the Niger Delta region it could use The Circular Policy Model to analyze this and state the model have used for the essay

Background

For the Nigerian economy as a whole, oil industry activities are a great benefit. In the recent years oil export revenues have accounted for approximately 97% of total exports and about 80% of total government revenues. In many ways, oil has been associated with a booming economy while low world oil prices have precipitated a recession. A case in a point was the early 1980s when the collapse of petroleum prices left Nigeria in a quagmire of economic problems falling output, galloping inflation, rising fiscal deficit increasing balance of payments deficit, and escalating external dept.

Thus we have a position where oil industry activities contribute positively to the growth of the Nigerian economy while at the same time they damage the environment and the Ecology of the Niger Delta. Thus, the long-standing challenge has been how to develop strategies which would mitigate the environmental damage from oil and gas industry activities and alleviate the negative effects of oil exploitation on the Niger Delta region thus promoting sustainable development in the region.

Recent Multinational Companies Disaster

About a third of the total in the oil spill leaking raw material is, in accordance with Nigeria data, still in the Niger Delta (Gillis and Campbell 2010). The governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, said that one must start from around 1.6 million barrels (about 254 million liters) of oil which are still in the Niger Delta. According to Nigeria estimates were a total of 5.4 million barrels from the leaked source, if there was assumed to 60,000 barrels per day. 2.6 million barrels of which were either evaporated or degraded biologically (Gillis and Campbell 2010). 823 000 barrels were taken from ships, 262,000 and 100,000 have been burned skimmed from the ...