THE ANTHROPOGENIC EFFECTS OF OIL EXPLORATION ON ECOLOGICAL FOREST. A PARADOX FOR AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN NIGER DELTA REGION, NIGERIA
Abstract
It is logically acceptable in a true premise to say that there exist multiple effects in various activities taking place from the land to the environment. These effects are now spreading rapidly making human, animals, air, soil, water, plants, and planet even more vulnerable to multiple exposures. Interestingly, agriculture and environment are both interrelated and connected but only human action depicts the simultaneous cohesion which brings contradictions in them. The Nigerian soil in Niger Delta has witnessed this malady for over 50 years without remedies around the corner. Unsustainable pattern of natural resources consumption has witnessed 83% of oil spills leeched into arable land and 17% in the swampy areas within one year and two months in some selected places recorded. A development which continually promote degradation of the natural ecosystem, affecting forest, agricultural production, and environmental sustainability. It has posed a threat, challenging both the present and future sustainable agricultural production, and human survival especially in this region. To support both present and future economic sustenance of the Nation at large, the natural resources exploitation requires green production activities to correct three ways adversely affecting how human beings use the environment to sustain their productive life as discussed in the methodology.
This paper cross-examines the incongruity created due to anthropogenic activities by the unwise use of the natural resources in the environment leading to disproportionate forestation, poverty, agricultural poor yields, loss of environmental services and biodiversity. Consequently, the study objective is specifically concerned about the serious challenges facing the long-term environmental problems of oil spillages on forest and agricultural sustainability in the Niger Delta region. The study gives more insight into future sustainable planning using Multiple Exposures Multiple Effects (MEME) model analysis. It will benefit the community, public and private institutions, government agencies, policy-makers, stakeholders among others.
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