eBusiness Weekly
Kate Okorie
In 2021, four Nigerian farmers won a legal battle against Shell after enduring years of oil spills that caused harmful pollution to their lands.
Supported by the environmental movement Friends of the Earth International, the farmers accused Shell of negligence.
A Dutch court ordered Shell to compensate the farmers for the losses they had suffered – one of a growing list of lawsuits led by indigenous people against major polluters and the first international legal action of its kind for a Dutch corporation.
“But this did not happen overnight. It happened because we listened to them, documented their grievances, and presented clear evidence,” said Babatunde Obayanju, communications coordinator for Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN).
Environmental Rights Action (ERA) is a Nigerian advocacy non-governmental organisation founded on 11 January 1993 to deal with environmental human rights.
Environmental movements like ERA/FoEN understand the importance of local context to communicate the climate crisis. Now they are focusing on climate change as well as localised environmental disasters like oil spills.
“These people understand that there is a change in their environment with respect to the climate, and most likely have a local name for it,” said Obayanju.
“What we have tried to do over the years is to help them understand the internationally recognised name of the environmental problems they are facing,” he added. Shell is just one of the organisations in their sights.
According to a 2014 study that traced carbon emitted by companies globally between 1751 and 2010, the oil major ranked sixth among the biggest carbon emitters, contributing 2.12 % to global emissions. The company and its subsidiaries in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region have been responsible for a number of environmental disasters in Nigeria and communities have fought for years for compensation.
ERA/FoEN is one of the pioneers of a campaign to halt oil exploration altogether. Today, more and more advocacy groups have embraced the movement and even made a song out of its key message to “leave the oil in the ground”.
“We know there is power in visuals, songs and folktales to communicate these problems,” said Obayanju.
Ghana-based Climate Communications and Local Governance Africa (CCLG-Africa) is another organisation drawing on community activism. It has fully integrated local arts, including theatre, drawings and photos, in its messaging.
“We realised that a lot of people need to see to believe,” said Kofi Don-Agor, president of CCLG-Africa.
“In the local community, we look at the environmental problems affecting them and, occasionally, we employ people to use art to depict the effect,” he said. —News24.com
