Menidin Egbo, coordinator, Community Environment and Development Network (CEDEN), has advocated for the restoration of extinct species due to oil pollution in the environment around Nigeria’s pioneer oilfield.

Ms Egbo said this on Saturday during a workshop tagged “Restoring Lost Species” in Otuabagi Community in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa.

Otuabagi community is host to Oloibiri Well 1, where oil was struck in commercial quantities in 1956 and made Nigeria a dominant player in the global oil market.

He said that the project will restore lost raffia forest ecology and establish eco-resource conservation processes for enhancing women ecologically based livelihoods through sustainable extraction of non-timber forest products in the Ekpadio swamp forest area of Otuabagi Community in Ogbia LGA.

“This Otuabagi site (in Olei clan) hosts the famous Oloibiri Oil Well 1-Nigeria’s first commercially viable petroleum crude production efforts in 1956,” Ms Egbo noted.

According to him: “The project objective is to reintroduce Raffia (palm) trees for ecological restoration/preservation; to reform local eco-regulatory policies/practice.

“To establish sustainable ecology-based communication for enhancing environmental governance; to enhance women’s role as custodians of ecological values. To promote eco-resources evaluation and documentary for enhancing sustainable prospects,” he said.

He explained that the Global Greenland Fund (GGF) funded project of 2022 raised awareness on ecological values, services and benefits across 11 communities of the Olei clan, designed to improve social development in local communities.

The coordinator recalled that the 2022 project focused on advancing environmental education by targeting “Environmental Education for Improved Sound Ecological Management” among agrarian rural communities.

“Thus, the beneficial communities of Ogbia Town, Oloibiri Town, Otuabo, Otuogidi, Opume, Akipilai, Emakalakala, Otuabagi, Otakeme, Otuegila, Otuoke, were represented among the Ogbia local indigenous people of the Ogbia LGA, which was estimated at 694.2 square kilometres in area.

“Population: 235,750 (male: 120,686 or 51.3 per cent, female: 114,881 or 48.7 per cent),” he said.

According to him, “This 2025 project was inspired by the will of some Otuabagi Women Farmers Association (OWFA). Originally founded by 12 people, the members were moved by the impact of the GGF-funded 2022 project.

“These women are already going forward to register a cooperative to formalise local farmers, organising to continue promoting non-formal environmental education for improved ecological conservation in the area.

“The 2025 project, like the 2022 effort, is being facilitated by Community Environment and Development Network (CEDEN), focusing on supporting the Otuabagi women’s resolve to carry out raffia palm ecology restoration in the degraded Ekpadio swamp forest of their community,” he said.

On her part, Gloria Alagbogu, a resource person at the workshop in her presentation on empowering women to strengthen local efforts for addressing the challenges of the human environment, said Bayelsa, located in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, has been cumulatively polluted by decades of oil exploration.

She said the area is home to diverse ecosystems such as mangroves, freshwater swamps, and rainforest zones.

The region, she continued, is plagued by persistent environmental degradation, driven by oil exploitation, gas flaring, pipeline vandalism, and weak regulatory enforcement.

“These activities not only damage the environment but also give rise to human-environment conflicts, including struggles over land and water access, community protests against oil companies, rising unemployment and insecurity,” she said.

On his part, Jeremiah Dagana, deputy director, Climate Change, Bayelsa ministry of environment commended the leadership of CEDEN and the Social Development Integrated Centre-Social Action (SDIC-SA) for their initiative in organising the workshop.

He said Bayelsa is blessed with an abundance of natural resources with a wide range of biodiversity in its rich mangrove and rainforest ecosystem.

According to him: “Our rich forest ecosystem has been threatened and severely damaged through unregulated and indiscriminate logging of timber, oil exploration and exploitation, with many other harmful activities contributing to environmental degradation and devastation,” he said.

(NAN)