after its 4,200 kilometres journey from the Guinea Islands, down to its
exit point into the Atlantic Ocean in the South-South of Nigeria. Since
my state is the point from where this River finally drains into the ocean,
we are a people whose biodiversity and livelihood are largely
determined by the rivers, creeks, streams, rivulets, and all manners of
water bodies around us.
Historically, our ancestors have lived for thousands of years in these
marshy lands and adapted fairly sufficiently to the vagaries of living in
such an environment. However, in recent times, we have become the
victims of threats of near extinction, both of our land and the entire
ecosystem and biodiversity as a result of the stark realities of Climate
Change. Due to climate change, the incidence of perennial flooding has
now exacerbated into the recent reoccurrence of monster floods. So,
on regular basis, our entire communities, human settlements, farmlands
and fish ponds are all totally covered by water on several months every
year. As would be expected, this has great implications on human
settlement, as well on plants and animals.
As if that is not enough, these floods also have great implication on
watershed management as they are creating high levels of
sedimentation of our water system, river erosion and land degradation.
The other big threat which we are combatting is the question of rise in
sea levels and coastal erosion. The rise in sea levels has led to
submerging in almost all our communities on the ocean springboard on
the Gulf of Guinea. As a matter of fact, a good number of communities
which existed about 30 years before now are right now as far as about
2 kilometres into the ocean.
This threat continues on yearly basis as more and more communities
and people are almost being wiped out. I particularly want to give the
example of a community known as Koluama which has since been split
into two as a result of coastal erosion. Despite remedial measure such
as sea walls, both communities’ are still under first line threat. Similarly
is the case of Odioma town. With the rise of sea water, there is also
great implication of salt water intrusion in almost all our communities.