The Federal Government of Nigeria has been tasked to put measures in place to ensure protection of coastal communities from devastating impacts of climate change. Academic Associates PeaceWorks (AAPW) funded by the European Union made this call at a two-day learning and sharing workshop on climate change and conflict management in the coastal communities of the South South region, organised in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The event featured training of Community Stakeholders Networks (CSN) and community members on climate change mitigation approaches, adaptation strategies, communal conflict management, coping with climate change as a cause of conflict in coastal communities of West Africa, introducing climate smart agriculture, as well as erosion and rush the sea level activities among others.
The Executive Director, AAPW, Chief Dr. Judith Burdin Asuni, said the programme marked the final phase of a three-year, multi-country initiative spanning through Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo, with the aim of tackling the interwoven crises of environmental degradation and conflict in vulnerable coastal areas. Asuni said the project, aimed at addressing climate change in West Africa was being championed by AAPW in collaboration with FAIMM, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), and West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). Asuni said “Over a period of 6 months in 2021 Marco and I brainstormed how we might address climate change in West Africa. I brought in two other NGOs in the region: HOMEF (Health of Mother Earth Foundation) headed by Rev Nnimmo Bassey, and WANEP (West African Network for Peacebuilding) led by Dr. Emeka Eze. Together we submitted a successful proposal to the European Union and started work on February 1, 2022. Academic Associates PeaceWorks used its decades of experience in community conflict to see how climate change can impact community dynamics,” she said.
Also speaking, Deputy Director of AAPW, Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo said, the South-South region, like other coastal areas across West Africa, faces growing threats from climate-induced disruptions, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, unpredictable weather patterns, and the resulting tensions over land, livelihoods, and resources.
Toyo said the workshop offers a critical space to reflect, learn, and act together to build a safer, more sustainable future for coastal populations in the region. She, however, called on the Federal Government to review, re-formulate, and implement policies that will promote sustainable practices and commit to integrating bottom-up approaches to policy formation, as well as regulate emissions by the international oil companies. She said “The coastal communities of this region, which spans several hundreds of kilometers, is a very vulnerable ecosystem. The ecology is being attacked from different angles. Climate change happens to be one of the major ways in which this vulnerability is building up.
“We already know that there’s a relationship between climate change and the kinds of practices of our oil exploration companies and interest which is abusive of a lot of the environmental standards which are globally available. The failure of Nigeria as a country to regulate the emission levels we are seeing from these areas. I mean, you talk about Port Harcourt, sometime when black sooth took over the whole of the city. We do know that this is a highly polluted area and this is impacting on the climate and we know that its also impacting on the environment and the water resources we have, the sea and the rivers and everything. The coastal communities are just at the edge of all these.”
EU to FG: protect coastal communities against climate change
