Nigeria and Oil Extraction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Nigeria and Oil Extraction - Essay Example Oil industry forms a major part of the export sector of Nigeria. However, the oil drilling and oil exploration has lead to massive environmental problems, such as water pollution, land degradation and breakdown of ecosystem. These issues have created further social problems in the lives of Nigerians. It seems that Nigerians are paying a huge price for economic development. Oil forms a pertinent part of the exports of the African country, Nigeria. In fact, much of the development, which started in the 1950s in this country, has been attributed to the revenue obtained from the oil industry. Moreover, future advancement in Nigeria depends largely on this industry. Nigeria comes second to the leading African nations, exporting oil. Since the discovery of oil in 1959, the country has largely become independent on this commodity for its foreign exchange reserves. Nigeria has improved economically and socially, since this has led to better infrastructure facilities, and a better trade balan ce. Nigeria is bound to progress in every occupation, because it remains one of the nations having huge amount of oil reserves, which remains the most prized commodity. Therefore, oil exploration and drilling should have profound impacts on the lives of Nigerians, which advances their lifestyle. This could mean in terms of better living conditions, education, better agriculture, better environment and availability of food (Emiri, Deinduomo, pp.349, year). However, this has not been the case, when it comes to Nigeria. Nigeria remains one of the Third World Countries, which is crippled by the same problems such countries face. One of the common problems faced by Third World Countries includes the rapid environment degradation. Environmental degradation has been advanced by the oil industry, because of the drilling impacts. The paper largely focuses on the different environmental impacts that the oil industry has created. It has become an issue of immense concern, especially in the rec ent decades. Environmental degradation has gotten quite out of hand. This can be proved by the fact that the Millennium Development Goals, which had to be completed by various countries by the year 2012, includes the issue of environmental management. Environmental management includes areas such as the protection and the sustainable use of the elements of the environment. It also includes the reversal of those environmental problems, which humans have created (Child Development, n.p). However, Nigeria has remained far behind in this goal. Environmental degradation has multiplied; because of the increased oil, drilling that has been occurring since the past few decades. Nevertheless, that does not signify or assume that there remains no environmental awareness in Nigeria. The negative environmental effects of oil operations have largely been studied and documented by van Dessel, who used to be the environmental studies head of Shell in Nigeria. He found out that many of the environme ntal problems stem from oil spills, gas flares, oil and other waste, drilling and even during surveys. Seismic surveys create many problems, such as the cutting of lines that adversely affect the mangroves forestation. The whole ecosystem gets disturbed in this way. Therefore, one such simple example shows the numerous environmental effects of oil drilling (Frynas, pp. 158). The environmental impact has been significant particularly in one area, which includes the Niger Delta region. This region forms part of history in the way that the first oil exploration was conducted in this area in 1956. At the time of discovery, some 5000 barrels of oil were produced every day. However, now the production has extended to such a large