My experience with the Shell Oil company of
Nigeria gave me a glimpse of the problems created when you have the
extraction of enormous wealth from an area where local people live in
dire poverty. I had similar experiences with Caltex in Indonesia. The
Niger delta pays a heavy price in environmental damage for the oil
extraction business, and one can understand why this has led to attacks
on installations, and to bloodshed at times. To give Shell its due, the
company attempts to provide compensation, and in the Delta area it
operates an agriculture extension service bigger than anything the
federal or state governments could mount. My judgment was that the
reason this did not placate the locals was the manner in which the
service was provided. Shell’s pandered and well-paid local officers (all
black, - the whole company is locally staffed), strutted about like
little lords and treated the people accordingly. The locals were not
really consulted, - they were simply told what Shell would do for them,
and how they had to cooperate.
Similarly, my recollections of Caltex in
eastern Sumatra, are of a beautiful modern floodlit complex behind a
high barbed wire fence. Just outside the fence, local fishers had to
manhandle their baskets of fish up a steep muddy path from the river
below to a miserable shack set on top of a rubbish dump, where their
fish were auctioned. There were no facilities worth the mention, - no
clean water, toilets, or proper access for fish vans or tricycles. And
the fishers had to pay 10% of their sales income for the privilege.
Perhaps conditions have changed since, but the contrast then was
obscene.
Oil, perhaps more than
any other resource, creates serious social tensions in poor countries
where the enormous income is grabbed by the ruling elite, with little
distribution down the economic ladder. Professor Michael Klare writes :
“When countries with few other sources of national wealth exploit
their petroleum reserves, the ruling elites typically monopolise the
distribution of oil revenues, enriching themselves and their cronies
while leaving the rest of the population mired in poverty – and the
well-equipped and often privileged security forces of these
“petro-states” can be counted on to support them. When the divide
between privileged and disadvantaged coincides with tribal or religious
differences, as it often does, violence isa likely outcome. The Western
press may describe such conflict as “ethnic” in character, but it comes
largely from the perverse effects of oil production.”
On the positive side, the oil industry has
offered redundant fishers alternative work and income, as has happened
in the North Sea. Without the timely opportunities provided by the oil
sector, the EC imposed fleet reductions would have impacted more heavily
on the coastal communities of Scotland and England. Such benefits are
less evident in the poorer countries whose fishers lack the technical
skills and qualifications to work on oil rigs or service vessels, except
as deckhands and labourers. Also, due to the large numbers of fishermen
in the tropics, the employment uptake of petroleum companies is too
small in comparison to have the kind of impact it has had in the North
Sea where fisher numbers were much less.
Much debate has taken place on the
environmental impact of offshore oil drilling. My own assessment is that
despite some dumping of heavy equipment off of rigs, the petroleum
companies have behaved responsibly. In contrast, some fisher
associations showed a disappointing lack of imagination. Under initial
agreements, the North Sea oil companies agreed to restore the sea bed to
its previous condition after the rigs were removed at the end of their
working life. The fisher associations insisted this be done.
Understandably, the oil companies suggested that complete removal of
well heads and their fixtures might not be necessary. In fact, in my
view, they could have formed the core of artificial reefs that could be
developed to provide habitats and protected refuges for local fish
populations.
In 1989 I was asked by the UN Industrial
Development Organisation to assist them in a global study of the
patterns of fish industry development. The study was not being
undertaken on conventional lines. Rather than look at the usual features
and parameters of national fishery sectors, the exercise focused on
variations that were influenced by secondary and tertiary influences. To
assist UNIDO in the study, the Organisation had secured the services of
a highly recommended Harvard computer programme analyst, Dr Cliff Zinnes.
An intelligent, fascinating and stimulating colleague to work with,
Cliff explained to me in layman’s terms, how a computer analysis tool
could identify factors that would not be readily apparent to the human
mind. The reason I had been invited to join the team at UNIDO’s Vienna
headquarters was that they needed a specialist with intimate knowledge
of the sector, to help them interpret the clusters that were identified
by the programme.
So we got to work, feeding into the
programme, relevant data on the fishery sectors of around 80 countries
with significant marine industries, regardless of their size,
production, or degree of modernisation. The results were printed out on
reams and reams of paper which Dr Zinnes perused like a true researcher,
seeking that key indication of significance. To an uniformed observer
the print-outs were just a myriad of meaningless numbers, but Cliff
would run his trained eye up and down every column, then circle one or
two numbers that captured his professional interest. Selected data
outputs were then fed back into a carefully designed programme that
identified clusters of countries with similar patterns in the structure
and development of their fisheries.
At first the clusters appeared to have
little meaning, but with guidance from the computer scientist, they
became remarkably significant. In most cases they grouped fish
industries together which had a number of similarities. What astonished
me was that we had given the computer no information on some of the
commonalities, but it had identified them from secondary and tertiary
values. For example, oil-producing states might be in one cluster,
though that ‘external’ factor was not in the inputed fishery sector
data. But the nature of the development of fisheries in Nigeria, Saudi
Arabia, Indonesia, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Brunei, and other major
petroleum producers, had elements that were common to each other. I will
come back to this point shortly, but let me mention a few other
findings.
Some fishery sector clusters contained only
states that were suffering from insurgencies, conflicts, or outright
wars, though again these were not features we had included. But they
were obviously conditions that affected local industry, and this was
picked up by the computer programme. General economic factors appeared
in other clusters, linking countries which had large foreign trade
surpluses, or which were highly dependent on imports. Countries with
well-developed, profitable financial sectors were also placed in
particular groups. In a few cases the computer appeared to recognise a
pattern that involved two, three or more national features that on the
surface had little relevance to fisheries.
Some may understandably question the value
of this kind of research. A comprehensive investigation of any nation’s
economy or resources, or stage of development, would identify most of
the features that appeared in the fish industry programme clusters.
While that is true, I think that the Zinnes / UNIDO study (still
available as a UNIDO publication), gave us insights we might have
otherwise overlooked, and made fish industry sector development advice
and assistance more informed. Directions that a particular country or
its aid partners might think helpful for the fishing industry, but which
in the light of the patterns followed in countries of similar make-up,
might be unwise or unhelpful in the long term, could be avoided. When
planners consider how to promote growth in any sector, they usually aim
for one or more benefits the investment would produce, such as increased
employment, income, or food supply. But there may be other benefits,
costs, risks, or drawbacks that should be borne in mind, and some of
these are not readily apparent in a standard investigation.
But to return to fishery sectors in
oil-producing countries, these present a set of issues and risks that
have huge social and environmental implications. Offshore oil extraction
and fisheries have worked reasonably well together in the North Sea, the
Gulf of Mexico, and the Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf). The latter region
has seen an enormous amount of pollution and destruction of marine
habitats, but that was the result of the Iran / Iraq conflict, and the
USA / Iraq war, rather than any fundamental problem with the oil
industry per se.
The serious fisher / petroleum conflicts of
the Niger Delta have been brought about by mainly onshore oil pollution,
and the gross indifference of local oil executives to the social and
environmental damage their operations caused to the coastal communities.
Despite the efforts of Shell Nigeria to win friends and achieve the
cooperation of local communities around Port Harcourt, their local
executives and extension officers behave with arrogance bordering on
contempt for the fishing community leaders. I have watched them in
action, and am not at all surprised that more radical elements in the
delta villages have adopted a hostile and sometimes criminal attitude
towards the oil company. This was relayed to Shell Nigeria and Shell UK
in my confidential reports, but as far as I know, elicited no corrective
response.
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