Restoration of Nigeria's environmentally devastated oil-producing Niger Delta region could take up to $1 billion and 30 years and amount to the world's largest-ever cleanup operation, a landmark United Nations report said Thursday.
The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report said pollution from more than 50 years of oil operations in Ogoniland is more far reaching than thought.
The assessment, commissioned by the Nigerian government and funded by oil giant Shell, comes on the heels of the company admitting liability for two spills in Nigeria. A spokesman said Shell welcomed the report.
"We will study the contents carefully and will comment further once we have done so," the spokesman said.
Nigeria's Niger Delta, the world's third largest wetland, is diverse and rich with mangroves and fish-rich waterways. But oil drilling has turned it into one of the most oil-polluted places on Earth with more than 6,800 recorded oil spills, accounting for anywhere from 9 million to 13 million barrels of oil spilled, according to activist groups.
But the environmental disaster has never received the kind of attention paid to last year's oil catastrophe along the Gulf Coast.
Amnesty International, which has researched the human rights impacts of pollution in the Delta, said people in the region have experienced oil spills on par with the Exxon Valdez disaster every year for the last half century.FULL STORY