At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues second session in New York this week, Goodluck Diigbo, the President of the Partnership for Indigenous Peoples’ Environment (PIPE) and representative for the International Oil Working Group (IOWG), implored Forum members to institute a mechanism to ensure that the lands of indigenous peoples are not subject to environmental vandalism or “blunders”, as has occurred in his home, the Ogoni territory in the Niger Delta.
According to Diigbo, Shell Oil has waged an ecological war against the Ogoni people over the past forty years, and carried out its drilling without the benefit of environmental and social impact assessments. A once beautiful forest that was Diigbo’s home is now a wasteland. “You can imagine the psychological impact on our way of life,” Diigbo says.
Diigbo proposed that the Permanent Forum recommend to the UN system the institution of a legal framework that would make environmental impact assessment mandatory under international law. Multinational corporations like Shell, which are interested in drilling for crude oil and natural gas, or exploring and exploiting the land for diamonds, gold, and uranium, must undertake a thorough and independent social and environmental impact assessment as their first order of business. Under these guidelines, indigenous peoples would be a party to these detailed discussions, to review the anticipated cultural, economic, environmental, linguistic, political, social and spiritual impacts. Any project violating this procedure should be discontinued and appropriate compensation paid to indigenous peoples involved.
As Diigbo says, “Thirty billion dollars worth of oil has been taken from the Ogoni region and still there is still no electricity, no good water, no good roads. We Ogoni are not against economic development; we believe in it. But we ask that our environment not be destroyed in the process.” The case of the Ogoni is not an isolated one, Diigbo adds. Many indigenous peoples around the world are facing similar hardships, and the elected members of the Permanent Forum must visit indigenous homelands and see for themselves the devastation being wreaked upon the lands of First Peoples.
Goodluck Diigbo has been promoting the environmental and human rights of indigenous peoples for more than a decade. A former broadcasting and television editor, public servant, and author of over 100 articles as well as a book, Path to Self-Reliance, Diigbo worked with internationally renowned writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed several years ago by the Nigerian Government for his acts of ‘dissidence’. Diigbo is also under a death sentence in Nigeria for his activism relating to the Ogoni people’s rights. Granted political asylum in the United States, he now lives in New York City and works actively to advance Ogoni human rights and a return to democracy in Nigeria.
In 1993 Diigbo established the Partnership for Indigenous Peoples’ Environment (PIPE) in order to advocate and protect the environmental, political, socio-economic and fundamental rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. His organization, a coalition of over 240 partners, promotes the building of indigenous environmental action networks. PIPE also seeks to build harmonious relationships with non-indigenous groups in the interests of conflict resolution and peaceful co-existence. PIPE sponsors conferences, lectures, public forums and research projects that generate public awareness of indigenous peoples’ struggles.
Goodluck Diigbo can be contacted at his New York offices at (212) 852-9000 or (212) 730-9343, or by email at epipe01@aol.com The Partnership for Indigenous Peoples Environment website is www.pipeorg.com.
