Governing the Environmental Impact of Dredging: Consequences for Marine Biodiversity in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

Abstract

The attention of most scholars and stakeholders is far drawn from the devastation of the environmental consequences caused by dredging related activities, which has necessitated sand filling and pilling including skewed national government policies, which has resulted to fundamental concern to halt species extinction, a situation which ecologist are not at ease with. Emphasis has been focused on alterations in the chemistry of the environment. They are worried with the numerous vanished creatures and saddened, often angered by their extinction. Man has directly or indirectly been the cause of the extinction, including the issues of depletion and degradation impact on the environment, thereby, leading to restrictions in the size, density, and distribution of organisms that threaten the biodiversity, resilience, or provision of ecosystem services. As soon as the functionally significant components of an ecosystem are missing, it is extremely challenging to identify and understand ecological thresholds. The extent and intensity of human disturbance to oceanic ecosystems is a significant threat to both structural and functional biodiversity and in many cases this has virtually eliminated natural systems that might serve as baselines to appraise these impacts. It is therefore recommended that effective management of dredging problems in the Niger delta will require enforcement of relevant environmental laws, environmental monitoring, as it help limits the huge expenses on habitat clean-up exercises and restoration programs and critical habitats should be banned or carried out in such a manner as to protect the area or limit dredging to the lowest ecological damage. This should be pressure on all oil companies and relevant stakeholders to discontinue with dredging related activities. Petrochemical such as oils and other hydrocarbon should not be present in the aquatic environment in concentration that can cause tainting of edible aquatic organism, form visible deposits on shoreline and bottom sediment or be detected as a visible film/sheen or discoloration.

Keywords: Dredging; Environmental impact; Ecological damage; Critical habitats; Bio-complexity; Bioturbation; Niger Delta