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 strengthen 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 Mr 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 platform.

“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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