Clean up efforts by SPDC [Shell Nigeria] are not leading to environmental restoration nor legislative compliance, nor even compliance with its own internal procedures.
UNEP Assessment, p135

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Taken together, the [UNEP] report and admission of responsibility by Shell are powerful reminders of the crippling effect the oil industry continues to have on the Delta’s economy and environment, particularly on local communities that rely on the land and water for their survival.

The impoverished people from these Delta communities have borne the brunt of devastating, toxic pollution since drilling began there in the 1950s. Many Ogoni have never lived without contaminated soil and water, and although Shell stopped producing oil from Ogoni as a result of popular opposition in 1993, they still pump oil across Ogoniland through the Trans-Niger pipeline.

Other suits have been brought against Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC in Nigeria, the Netherlands, and the United States for environmental harms and human rights abuses related to the company’s oil operations in the Niger Delta. These claims have covered issues ranging from continued gas flaring (a leading emitter of greenhouse gases that contributes to acid rain and a practice that is illegal under Nigerian law), to the destruction of the delicate ecology of the Delta, to complicity in murder, torture and other serious harms. ERI was involved in a case in U.S. federal court over Shell’s complicity in the killings, torture and severe abuses committed by the Nigerian military against individual Ogoni in the early 1990s. That case was only settled in 2009 when Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million, which allowed for the creation of a trust for the Ogoni people and compensation for the victims in the case and their surviving relatives.

For more background on the Wiwa v Shell case, check out this report by Al-Jazeera, New York.

PLATFORM featured on Channel 4 News this evening, providing analysis on two current news stories – the revelations of the full extent of environmental devastation in Ogoni land contained in the UN’s new report, and Shell’s admission of liability for two recent oil spills in Bodo, Ogoniland. Campaigner Ben Amunwa helped provide background research as the story rapidly unfolded.

Also, Shell’s spills in Nigeria were the top story on BBC World News, which featured a lengthier analysis from PLATFORM.

Earlier in the day, PLATFORM’s analysis was also quoted in msnbc.com’s report on the same story, available here. The article covered Shell’s double standards in Nigeria, and the potentially ground-breaking implications of the company’s admission of liability for the 2 recent oil spills in Bodo.

The lawyers and rights groups have said the amount of oil in these two spillages alone was approximately 20 percent of the amount that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico following the BP  disaster.

“BP did more in 6-months for the U.S. communities than Shell has done in 50 years for the Ogoniland,” said Amnesty International’s [Audrey] Gaughran.

Shell has admitted liability but has a long way to go to make amends

Oil spills destroyed my village in Nigeria and decades of environmental and social injustice are still to be addressed.

By Patrick Naagbanton

Shell’s admission of liability for two massive oil spills in 2008-09 in my village of Bodo in the Niger Delta is a step forward in the long struggle for corporate accountability. An impoverished village that yesterday lay in ruins has today felt a welcome glimmer of hope and justice.

We are happy with the news that Shell could be forced to clean up the environmental devastation it has caused and to pay more than $400m in compensation. But our jubilation is overshadowed by more than five decades of environmental and social injustice yet to be addressed.

Bodo village is a fishing community in the minority Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Shell was forced out of Ogoni in 1993, following mass protests led by writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed on 10 November 1995 alongside eight other campaigners. Shell’s vast network of oil wells, pipelines, flow-stations and gas flares remained in Ogoni and are an everyday reminder of what we have suffered.

Many of Shell’s rusty, leaky pipelines date back to the 1970s and have been poorly maintained ever since (see pages 31-36 and 43 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). It was equipment failure that caused Shell’s high-pressure Trans-Niger pipeline to rupture on 28 August 2008, gushing an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil per day into Bodo for weeks. The land and water was covered in thick layers of crude. Shell was also responsible for a second spill from the same pipeline on 2 February 2009.

Oil spills have effectively destroyed my community. Local farmers and fishers were forced to abandon their traditional ways of life. Bodo Creek is, ecologically speaking, dead. The fish that were not killed by the heavy pollution now reek of petroleum and cannot sustain a village population of 69,000 people. Shell has violated our basic human rights to food, water and livelihood. The compensation Shell offered us – £3,500 plus bags of rice and sugar – was insulting and wholly inadequate.

Oil spills are a daily occurrence in the Niger Delta. According to United Nations Development Programme, more than 6,800 spills were recorded between 1976 and 2001, but many more have gone unreported (see page 21 of UNDP report). Independent estimates put the total volume of oil spilled in the Delta over the last 50 years at 9m to 13m barrels, twice that of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. This estimate does not include the wider forms of oil pollution for which there is no data.

I helped the Bodo community file a case against Shell in the high court in London because it is easy for Shell to abuse the judicial system in Nigeria. The oil giant spent decades fighting lengthy appeals that bled the victims dry in legal costs. Shell is appealing against a 2006 order to pay $1.5bn in damages to the Ijaw communities of Bayelsa State. Since 2005, Shell has refused to comply with a court order to end gas flaring in the Iwherekan community. The The Ejama Ebubu community has waited more than 40 years for Shell to clean an oil spill from 1970. Life expectancy in the Delta is around 43 years (see page 24 of UNDP report). Rural communities impacted by pollution in the Niger Delta are routinely denied access to justice.

Taking the Bodo case to London, the seat of Shell’s global headquarters and a European oil capital, was a last resort. On this occasion, it has proved harder for Shell to evade responsibility. Our hope is that this case will force Shell to compensate more victims in a timely and adequate manner and to clean up its widespread pollution in the Delta. We note with dismay that Shell is refusing to compensate victims in alegal case brought by Nigerian farmers and Friends of the Earth in The Hague.

Across the Delta, we still face a number of challenges. Shell and the Nigerian authorities must take immediately action to clean up and remediate more than 2,000 oil spill sites (see page 16 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). Every day that Shell delays clean up, the ecological damage worsens. Oil is spreading across the creeks and mangrove forests and seeping deeper into the water table. The cumulative impact on the environment will take decades to remedy. A new UNEP report is expected to confirm the depths of the environmental damage the Ogoni region.

Nigerian laws must also change. Currently, victims of oil spills have highly limited statutory rights to compensation. A single payment of $7,000 (see page 52 of Amnesty report) can discharge oil companies from having to clean up oil spills no matter how big. Such token fines must be replaced with meaningful penalties that are stringently enforced. Companies like Shell cannot be allowed to exploit lax regulations abroad, and no company should be above the law.

How long will Bodo village have to wait before it will be restored by Shell? Ejama-Ebubu is still waiting more than 40 years on. In cases like Oruma, Shell’s clean up efforts have done more harm than good. Shell has scooped and dumped the oil inside pits and set them ablaze, incinerating local farmland. The past 50 years shows us that Shell will only take action under intense public pressure from investors, governments, and the international community. We won’t be holding our breath.

4 August 2011

UNEP Report: ERA seeks $100 bn for Niger Delta

With yesterday’s release of the report of a two-year study by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has called for the creation of a $100 billion Environmental Restoration Fund for the Niger Delta.

ERA/FoEN in a statement issued in Lagos welcomed the report and said that the Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, despite its short comings, has not only vindicated it worst fears about the state of the environment in Ogoniland and the entire Niger Delta, but also showed Shell’s atrocious breach of minimum requirements of the Environmental Guidelines and Standards for Petroleum Industries in Nigeria (EGASPIN) and its own standards.

The UNEP assessment presented to President Goodluck Jonathan showed hydrocarbon pollution in surface water throughout the creeks of Ogoniland and up to 8cm in groundwater that feed drinking wells at 41 sites including a serious case in Nisisioken Ogale in Eleme, Rivers State. Soils were found to have been polluted with hydrocarbons up to a depth of five metres in 49 observed sites, while, benzene, a known cancer-causing chemical was found in drinking water at a level 900 times above World Health Organisation (WHO) acceptable levels. The report also documented that fisheries have been destroyed and that wetlands around Ogoniland are highly degraded and facing degradation. These combined, have led to irreparable loss of livelihoods and will take 30 years to remediate.

UNEP, at the request of the Nigerian government conducted the assessment with funding to the tune of $9.5 million from Shell.

Reacting to the contents of the report, ERA/FoEN Executive Director, Nnimmo Bassey said: “The UNEP assessment with documented evidence of widespread pollution in Ogoniland is not at all surprising. It has only vindicated our position that Shell, and not the people, is wholly responsible for this environmental assault and has shown with brazen contempt that it will not abide by any internationally accepted standards in the oil industry nor any that it set for itself”

“Going by the findings, the Ogoni people who, ironically, are still living with this ecological disaster may never have the right to an environment that can allow them develop as they desire. Not even the paltry sum recommended for remediation can assuage the dislocation that Shell’s activity has wrought on them”

Bassey insisted that $1 billion initial restoration fund is negligible compared with the mammoth ecological disaster caused by Shell, even as he urged the Nigerian government to immediately compel the company to halt other ongoing pollution such as routine gas flares in the Niger Delta and the leaking pipes that continually pollute streams, rivers and farmlands.

Bassey noted that ERA’s demand for $100 billion in remediation funds is hinged on the fact that aside Ogoniland, Shell’s ecological onslaught is replicated in other Niger Delta communities that must also be considered for a comprehensive environmental audit.

“We again reiterate our opposition to Shell resuming oil exploration in Ogoniland. The Ogoni people and indeed the entire Niger Delta people demand an apology for Shell and insist the company must not only halt its unfriendly environmental practices, but must also take full responsibility for the clean up and compensate the people. Aside this, we demand that only genuine community representatives be allowed as members of the proposed Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority to forestall any attempt by Shell to dodge responsibility. Anything short of this is untenable”, Bassey insisted.

In a similar reaction, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) has expressed shock at the size and severity of the pollution that the UNEP report covers.

The environmental justice movement called on Shell to immediately come up with an action plan with the Nigerian government to commence remediation actions immediately.

It also said that an integral part of a broader assessment which it also recommends to cover other Niger Delta communities should include the pollution and health impacts of gas flaring and the effects of oil theft from Shell’s facilities which the company has not done much to halt.

Experts such as Professor Richard Steiner of Alaska have documented Shell’s double standards since 2008.

Philip Jakpor

Head of Media

ERA/FoEN

08037256939

Here is a round-up of press coverage so far. Current estimates suggest that Shell could pay our over $410 million (£250m) in compensation.

FT: Shell’s Nigeria pay-out could top £250m

BBC: Ogoniland oil spills: Shell admits Nigeria liability

Reuters: Shell faces first Nigerian oil spill claims in UK

Niger Delta spills: Shell liable

The Guardian: Shell oil spills in the Niger delta: ‘Nowhere and no one has escaped’

RTT: Shell Accepts Liability For Two Oil Spills In Nigeria

Fox: Shell’s SPDC JV To Begin Settlement Talks Following Nigeria Spill

Shell accepts blame for Nigeria oil spills

Africasia: Shell admits ‘devastating’ Nigeria oil spills

Nigeria ‘sabotage’ forces Shell shut-in

Morning Star: Oil giant Shell admits liability for Nigeria spills

RNW: Shell responsible for Nigeria leaks

CTV: Shell’s Nigeria payout could top $400-million

AFP: Shell admits ‘devastating’ Nigeria oil spills

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up. Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline. Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt inNigeria. Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the 2008 double rupture of the Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community.

Shell’s admission of liability could open the floodgates for further lawsuits in the UK over the company’s daily oil spills in the Niger Delta region. Local human rights groups welcomed the outcome.

“The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbanton, coordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt.

Expect further bad news for Shell this week, as the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) is due to release its report on the full extent of the damage caused by oil spills in Ogoni.

Later this week the company will be heavily implicated by the UN for the environmental disaster in the Niger delta which has seen more than 7,000 oil spills in the low lying swamps and farmland since 1989. Shell first discovered oil in the Niger delta in 1956. According to Amnesty International, more than 13m barrels of oil have been spilt in the delta, twice as much as by BP in last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, funded by Shell, will be presented to president Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday and is expected to be released on Friday in London. UNEP’s report, the first peer-reviewed scientific study of more than 60 spills, is expected to say that oil pollution in Ogoniland is much worse than previously believed, having sunk deep into the water table. Many spills have not been cleared up since 1970 and the effects on the local economy, health and development have been severe. The report will not apportion blame for individual spills.

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A spectacular life-size steel bus, created as a memorial to Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, will be officially welcomed to its new home in Tottenham as part of Civic Day celebrations on Saturday 25 June.

The event, to be held at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre from 12noon, will feature poetry and speeches from local campaigners as well as live music, dance and drumming, film screenings, a barbecue and stalls from local artists. It is being organised by the Centre in collaboration with Platform, a group of environmentalists, artists, human rights campaigners, educationalists and community activists, who commissioned the Bus as part of their campaigning on human rights and oil in Nigeria. The striking steel vehicle will be at the centre of the celebrations, with drummers performing from its roof and its inside used to screen short films. Musicians from all parts of the community will contribute to the day.

Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995, together with 8 other activists who had campaigned against the environmental and social damage caused by Shell’s oil drilling activities in the Niger Delta. In 2005, on the Tenth anniversary of his execution, London-based acclaimed artist Sokari Douglas Camp CBE won the commission to create a spectacular steel Bus sculpture. Completed in 2006, the bus has toured the UK ever since, and will now be resident at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Town Hall Approach Road, where it will be the focus of a year of planned artistic and educational activities.

John Baraldi, Chief Executive of the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, said:

We are extremely happy that we will be the new home for Sokari Douglas Camp’s incredible sculpture – and that we can use Tottenham Civic Day to officially welcome the artwork to the Centre and the community. Bernie Grant worked tirelessly to defend the rights of all sections of our society, and was a passionate advocate for social justice, so the fit between artwork and space could not be better. We hope to see the bus become the focus for a sculpture park here.

Jane Trowell, Platform’s Education Coordinator, said:

The Bus is a people’s vehicle – it draws people in to thinking about social and environmental justice in a unique way. It has local, national and international significance, and we hope it will provoke debate and inspire the people of Tottenham. Bernie Grant, like Ken Saro-Wiwa, would have approved of it.

Maria Saro-Wiwa (widow of Ken Saro-Wiwa) will be a special guest  at the launch event, and a statement from artist Sokari Douglas Camp written for the occasion will be read out.Visitors will also be able to take a tour behind the scenes at the Arts Centre and even watch films screened inside the bus itself. The event is free to all, and the official launch event will start at 1pm.
ENDS
Notes for Editors
This artwork and event presents a spectacular photo opportunity. If you would like to discuss photography on the day or in advance, or for any other information, please contact Dan Lines.

Confirmed speakers on the day will include:
John Baraldi, Chief Executive, BGAC

Jane Trowell, Platform

Zena Edwards – Poet with strong Tottenham connections, who has performed at WOMAD, The London Jazz Festival, Poetry International at the Royal Festival Hall, Glastonbury and many others.

Ben Amunwa, campaigner on oil and human rights in Nigeria, Platform
Other speakers tbc

About the Bernie Grant Arts Centre
The Bernie Grant Arts Centre is named for Bernie Grant MP (1944-200), one of Britain’s first black MPs and a tireless campaigner for equality and cross-cultural understanding. Designed by award winning architect David Adjaye, and opened in 2007, the centre includes a a 274-seat auditorium, studio/rehearsal space, café/bar, multimedia workspaces and open spaces. The centre is committed to programming work that reflects and engages the full diversity of its community, and is home to award-winning dance company Tavaziva.

About Platform

Platform campaigns on issues of social and environmental justice, bringing together the skills of researchers, activists and artists. For the past 15 years the focus has been on oil and coal, climate change, and the financial systems that underpin it. Platform works in solidarity with affected communities abroad but looks at how to reduce London and the UK’s negative impacts on those communities. In 2004, the project Remember Saro-Wiwa was initiated, funded by Arts Council England and Roddick Foundation, to create a Living Memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Press contacts:

Jane Trowell, Education Coordinator/Ben Amunwa, Nigeria oil and human rights campaigner (020 7403 3738)