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Shell hit by $1.5 billion Nigeria spill
claim
By Terry Macalister
Aug. 26— Shell has been hit by a $1.5 billion pollution
claim from the Nigerian parliament 24 hours after being fined in Britain
and the United States by financial regulators for “unprecedented
misconduct.”
The latest bombshell was delivered by the Nigerian senate after it reviewed
a compensation demand from the Ijaw tribe in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Shell has been under fire in Nigeria for many years over its environmental
record, which has been made worse by sabotage in the politically turbulent
south of the country.
The company admits that in 2002 alone there were 262 oil spill incidents
in Nigeria, involving 2,700 tons of crude. In the same year it identified
548 sites, including pipelines, that needed “remedial” action
to avoid contamination.
“The motion was overwhelmingly passed and the senate committee
on petroleum was asked to monitor compliance,” said a senate spokesman
quoted by Reuters.
Newspapers in Nigeria said the Ijaws were demanding to be paid for health
problems and economic hardship caused by several spillages.
Shell’s head office in London played down the reports, saying it
had not yet seen the senate resolution and would not comment in detail
until it had.
But the Anglo-Dutch group confirmed it had contested claims made by
the Ijaw at a public hearing by a committee of the Nigerian house of
representatives in May 2002.
“It is important to note that the resolution that was eventually
passed on the matter by the house of representatives did not endorse
the panel of jurists’ recommendation to pay $1.5 billion to the
petitioners,” said a Shell spokeswoman.
Nigeria is a major source of oil revenues for Shell but has been a thorn
in its side.
Shell has been in conflict with the Nigerian authorities over allegations
it abused a tax-break system, the so-called reserves addition bonus.
It also upset the government when it admitted Nigeria was at the heart
of the reserves reporting scandal that led to $35 million of fines in
Britain and the US.
It recently angered local unions by confirming that it was looking at
restructuring its business, a move some believe will cost 1,000 jobs.
Last night, however, there was confusion about the impact of the Senate
resolution when Nigeria’s presidential adviser on petroleum, Edmund
Dakouro, suggested the $1.5 billion fine might be “illegitimate”
and unenforceable.
“Senate rulings have the force of public opinion, and are a very
powerful statement, but the senate doesn’t have the executive force
to carry it out,” Dakouro told Dow Jones Newswires.
Shell has been keen to rebuild its battered image in Nigeria, recently
announcing plans to appoint its first Nigerian national to head its
business in the country.
On Aug. 25 Shell’s London head office was keen to draw a line under
the bad publicity, announcing plans to increase capital investment for
2004 in European exploration and production by $150 million to $1.8
billion. Last week it was the most active foreign participant in the
latest round of licensing in Brazil.
Shell is in a desperate hurry to rebuild its reserves after slashing
its estimates by nearly 25 percent to bring it into line with the requirements
of the US regulator, the securities and exchange commission. It has
fallen behind leading rivals in replenishing its asset base.
But delays in informing stock markets left it open to censure for making
what the Financial Services Authority described on Tuesday as “false
and misleading announcements” about its real reserves position.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Mali officials try to cut down on logging
By Almahady Cisse
Bamako, Mali, Aug. 24 (IPS)— The rapid pace of deforestation
in Mali has prompted the government to introduce a ban on the logging
of live trees during the country’s rainy season, in the second
half of the year.
Beginning last month, the export of firewood will also be outlawed during
this period. Most of Mali’s wood exports go to neighboring Mauritania.
“From now on loggers are going to have to make do with dead trees,
the culling of which will improve our forests,” says Environment
Minister Nancouma Keita.
At present, close to one million acres of land are deforested annually
to produce firewood for Malians, who use six million tons of this fuel
every year. A 2000 study by the National Office of Energy showed that
firewood is used for almost all domestic heating needs in Mali.
In light of statistics such as these, “doing nothing (about deforestation)
means that the future of our children is in danger,” said Ousmane
Keita, a retired logger, in an interview with IPS. Thirty-nine percent
of Mali’s surface area is forested (the north of the country is
composed of Saharan desert).
Authorities were prodded into taking action on logging by a meeting
between subsistence farmers and Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure
in the central town of Mopti, in June. In the course of this gathering,
the farmers voiced fears about the extent to which Mali’s arable
land was being turned into desert.
“To guarantee that the new provisions are enforced, monitoring
squads will be crisscrossing logging areas, especially forest and brush
areas,” Alpha Aly of the National Office for the Conservation of
Nature told IPS.
Adds Felix Dakouo, national director for nature conservation, “There
will be no more pity for recalcitrants. From now on, lawbreakers will
have to pay the penalties set by law... regarding logging and wood transport.”
“Penalties will range from fines of 5,000 to 50,000 CFA francs
[$9-$95] and 10 days to a month in prison,” says Dakouo. Chainsaws
could also be seized, he told IPS, and the vehicles used to transport
wood impounded.
Aly admits that Mali does not have the resources to monitor wooded areas
around the clock. But, he adds, “We know where the most important
sites are, where irresponsible logging takes place.”
Aboua Camara, a firewood retailer in the capital, Bamako, takes a less
optimistic view.
“Even if it is illegal, people will continue chopping down trees
because that’s their livelihood,” he noted.
The difficulties posed by safeguarding forests have left some nostalgic
for the rule of former dictator Moussa Traore, in the 1980s. While Keita
acknowledges that the leader often acted harshly, he notes that forestry
teams which were active under Traore were effective in preventing irresponsible
logging.
These teams, composed of soldiers acting as forest wardens, monitored
all wooded sites and issued large fines against offending loggers, sometimes
even beating them.
Hamidou Minta, a researcher at the Rural Polytechnic Institute, takes
another view.
“We must avoid adopting bad forest conservation policies, such
as those used in the past, that start from the premise that (deforestation)
is ‘caused by poor people’,” he notes, adding “In
the 1980s, for example, a draconian set of measures was put in place
by the forestry service concerning the use of forests by local communities.”
Minta says these unpopular policies were vigorously resisted by those
who lived around wooded areas, as they found themselves deprived of
an important part of their livelihood.
“This initiative was ultimately abandoned, with no positive result,”
observes Minta.
The government’s latest conservation efforts appear to be meeting
with some success.
Boundouga Keita – assistant director of the forestry station at
Niamana, near the capital of Bamako – told IPS that even allowing
for the onset of the rainy season, considerably less wood and charcoal
were being taken into the city.
Niamana is one of the main transit points for wood that is delivered
from Zantiguila and Manakoro, about 150 miles south of Bamako, and from
Kassela, 40 miles south-west of the capital.
Unaware of the ban on logging live trees, certain persons interviewed
by IPS in Bamako believed the higher prices now being charged for wood
and charcoal were the result of winter shortages.
“A bag of charcoal which normally sells for 3,000 CFA francs [$6]
went up to 4,500 or 5,000 CFA francs [$8-$9] or even more in certain
areas of the capital,” Fanta Keita Ballo, a housewife from the
suburb of Badalabougou said.
This situation has prompted dire warnings from the likes of Alou Kanté,
who transports charcoal.
“If this continues, Bamako will experience a shortage of wood –
because the amount that is available at rural markets is not sufficient
to meet demand,” he claims.
But Dakouo dismisses these fears. “Our studies have shown that
stocks of wood and charcoal are sufficient to cater for the period of
the bans,” he said during a recent press conference in the capital.
A question that still begs asking, however, is whether Mali is developing
the use of alternative energy sources by its citizens, or technologies
that make the use of wood more efficient.
According to Dakouo, an alternative that has been experimented with
over the past decade is an improved version of the stove, made out of
local materials such as mud bricks.
The use of this stove “reduces the amount of wood or charcoal used
for domestic energy needs,” he said, although no detailed study
has yet been done on this device.
Salimata Coulibaly, president of the Malian Consumers’ Association,
says gas has also come under discussion as a possible alternative to
wood – but that its use remains limited at the moment.
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