The Bayelsa Ministry of Environment and non-governmental organisations in the state have called for stronger collaboration to combat air pollution and protect the state’s ecosystem.
They made the call at a stakeholders’ meeting hosted by the Ministry of Environment on Tuesday in Yenagoa.
The collaboration aims to strengthen local initiatives to monitor and tackle air pollution.
The Commissioner for Environment, Dr Ebi Ben-Ololo, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Hamilton Ekeke, reaffirmed the ministry’s readiness to work with stakeholders to preserve Bayelsa’s ecosystem.
The meeting provided a platform for stakeholders to examine gaps in environmental monitoring and response, particularly in oil-producing communities.
Participants expressed concern over the World Health Organisation’s estimate that air pollution causes about seven million deaths worldwide each year.
Menidin Egbo, coordinator of the Community Environment and Development Network (CEDEN), said air pollution monitoring should have been integrated into assessments of oil-spill damage since the establishment of the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) in 2006.
Egbo added that periodic reviews of NOSDRA’s operations, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, could have promoted the use of local technologies to address air pollution.
“Such efforts could also have helped tackle soil degradation, water contamination, and the destruction of forests and crops associated with oil spills,” he said.
Ikechukwu Ahaka of the Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI) said capacity-building for stakeholders and government agencies was necessary to improve responses to air pollution.
Ahaka said MAJI was promoting and installing air-quality monitoring devices that run on open-source technology to monitor ambient air pollution in the Niger Delta.
He said the initiative was designed to strengthen local actors’ capacity to monitor air quality and address pollution in affected communities.
“MAJI is also promoting public awareness and building local capacity to generate empirical data on particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
“These pollutants pose risks to air quality, human health and ecosystem safety,” he said.
Ethel Onyimbo, president of the Oloibiri Women Association (OWA), commended Bayelsa Governor Douye Diri for supporting collaborative initiatives to address environmental pollution in the state.
Onyimbo said stronger alliances among stakeholders would reinforce efforts to tackle ambient air pollution through sustained grassroots action.
She described the state government’s approval to host the governance secretariat of DeltasUnite, a global initiative to protect vulnerable delta environments, as evidence of its commitment to environmental protection.
She also recalled Diri’s participation in discussions on China-Africa cooperation in river, coastal and delta governance at East China Normal University in Shanghai.
The discussions took place during the opening of the Fifth United Nations Ocean Decade Conference on Mega Deltas.
Onyimbo said the collaborative approach to protecting delta ecosystems should be extended to tackling air pollution through community-based interventions.
She expressed concern that developing countries bore a disproportionate share of the health burden associated with air pollution.
She added that women and children, including unborn children, were particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of outdoor air pollution.
The stakeholders called for sustained cooperation among government agencies, civil society organisations and local communities to strengthen air-pollution monitoring and mitigation efforts.
