For those concerned about the US economy or national security risks, T. Boone Pickens and data from the US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) show us that foreign oil imports should be at the top of our list. We rely very heavily on foreign oil and send a good chunk of our money to other countries to supply us with that oil — $25 billion last month alone!

Take a closer look.

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A new report released today says that if we shift our economy — to a greener, low-carbon economy — we will have more jobs, not fewer.

Earlier this week, Tony Blair (former prime minister of the UK) and the Climate Group reported that if we worked to avoid climate change we’d create 10 million new jobs by 2020 — worldwide. Another recent study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that such a shift could increase employment in the EU by 2.7 million jobs by 2030.

One more report, released today by the Global Climate Network (an alliance of nine influential think tanks) comes to similar conclusions.

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A disturbing incident in Eket, Nigeria reveals that unsuspecting roadside barbecue patrons may have been eating vulture meat instead of chicken.

Hungry buyers tempted by the scrumptious sizzle of meat cooking over a charcoal fire may want to think twice before buying a snack from one of these outdoor roasting vendors. What they think is chicken could actually be … vulture.

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Nigerian forces have been fighting on the Niger delta since May, but international awareness of the problem seems slight. The military have been attacking resistance fighters hiding there, and around thirty thousand civilians are caught in impossible circumstances. They have little food and water, and very little opportunity to get information about their situation out to the wider world.

Are oil companies causing humanitarian crises?

Nigeria has a large population and is also a major oil producer, with over 90% of the oil it exports coming from the Niger delta region. Last week, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed to have cut both the Shell and Agip pipelines in Beyelsa state, but the Nigerian military says this is not true. Shell stated that it was investigating the claim and Agip refused to comment.

An independent report, commissioned by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation in 2006, says that the Niger delta region is one of the five most polluted places on the planet, in large part due to oil spillages. An untestable assertion is that, in the past decade, more than a million tones of oil have been spilled in the delta, damaging the mangrove eco-system that is the fragile margin between saline and freshwater environments in this part of the world. It is also claimed, but unverifiable, that gas flaring from petroleum extraction has led to a level of airborne toxicity that causes acid rain, cancers and birth defects.

These claims cannot be tested because access to the delta is difficult to obtain. For many years the Nigerian government, whether elected or otherwise, has been fighting against a variety of groups who have found the delta an ideal hiding-ground as well as the place in which the government in Lagos is easiest to hurt – you could say that the delta is Nigeria’s wallet. There are further, somewhat more testable claims that oil companies have provided finance and weapons to successive Nigerian governments to help them quash opposition to their regimes. US Subcommittees have heard that US oil company sites in the delta were given police and military protection, often resulting in deaths of local people and razing of local housing to provide ‘safe operation zones’.

Mangroves polluted, fisheries failing?

Because it’s almost impossible to get into some parts of the delta, both environmental and human rights organisations struggle to assess the true extent of the human suffering and environmental degradation that is happening in one of the most oil-rich regions of Africa.  What is certain is that what was once a fertile region of rotational farming and small scale aquaculture is now no longer agriculturally productive – while around 50% of fish eaten across Nigeria is harvested in the delta, the higher value shrimp and other crustacean fisheries have well nigh collapsed.  The planet cannot afford to lose fisheries: as the developed world struggles with the collapsed cod stocks, and the imminent collapse of the blue-fin tuna fishery, it’s disturbing to discover that complex ecosystems in Africa, including fisheries, maybe disappearing without public recognition or much attempt to save them and the people who depend on them.

Niger delta courtesy of 300td.org at Flickr under a creative commons licence

There have been a number of news stories (Agence France Presse, Red Orbit) about Ismail Dauda, the crocodile and python skin tanner of Kano in northern Nigeria. He is reportedly processing up to 20,000 skins (crocodile & python) a month. His comment that crocodiles are now harder to source than ten years ago and discussions with conservationists lead to the conclusion that crocodiles “might soon face extinction in Nigeria” if the authorities do start to control this mainly illegal trade.

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Drug company giant Pfizer has agreed to settle out of court - to the tune of $75 million - in the case of its unlicensed medical trials on Nigerian children during a meningitis outbreak in 1996, which led to 11 deaths and serious injuries such as organ failure and brain damage in others.

The Nigerian Health Ministry called the experiment “an illegal trial of an unregistered drug” and a “clear case of exploitation of the ignorant.”

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In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8th, a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women, the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) and Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) have released three new case studies and a video on the impacts of monoculture tree plantations on women in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Brazil.

These tree plantations provide rubber for car and bus tires, palm oil for processed foods and pulp for toilet paper - all items being used in the west. They are also destroying local communities according to WRM and FoEI.

In the case of Nigeria, in 2007, the French tire maker Michelin came in to the Iguóbazuwa Forest Reserve, a biologically diverse region supplying food for around 20,000 people. Michelin bulldozed the forest and local farm lands to convert them into rubber plantations. Women living there lost their subsistence farms and the local forest which provided medicinal herbs and plants.

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A federal jury ruled yesterday that Chevron had done nothing wrong a decade ago when it called the Nigerian military to control protesters who had taken control of an oil platform, demanding better treatment and jobs.

In the end, the military killed two protesters. Accounts of the incident vary drastically: Chevron says the protesters were violent, armed, and had taken workers hostage, while the protesters and their lawyers claim they had been entirely peaceful and engaged in civil disobedience.

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Organizers from Global Exchange, Justice in Nigeria Now, and West County Toxics Coalition gathered at a Chevron gas station here in San Francisco on Monday in support for the Nigerian plaintiffs in a human rights trial against the oil company. About 100 anti-Chevron protesters were staged in front of the gas station located at 9th and Howard.

At the federal court building a few blocks away jury selection was beginning for the case, “Bowoto v. Chevron.” The lawsuit results from an incident back in 1998 in which more than a hundred Nigerians occupied a Chevron drilling platform for three days. The protest resulted in Chevron unleashing Nigerian security forces to have them removed which led to three injuries and one death.

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