1. Oil companies, led by Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total, Agip and Royal Dutch Shell, have transformed what was once a waterlogged equatorial forest, stripping away mangroves to lay 4,500 miles of pipelines, over 150 oil fields and 275 flow stations. 2. A young girl crosses over pipelines that run directly through the town. A troubled area near Port Harcourt, factional fighting is common in Okrika. 3. The Bonny Island Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas terminal is the largest of its kind in the delta and is a owned by a consortium of oil companies. No inhabitants from the surrounding villages work in this facility. 4. An Urhobo woman bakes krokpo-garri, or tapioca, in the heat of a gas flare in Afiesere. Local people have worked in this way since 1961, when Shell first opened this flow station. Pollutants from the flare cause serious health problems and life expectancy is short. 5. In the village of Kalabilema, Bayelsa, a felled mangrove forest shows the damage of a fire which killed four people in March 2004. The cause of the fire was an old oil spill from leaking pipelines. 6. Old Bonny Town on Bonnie Island, where the slave trade and palm oil trade previously thrived. Now the town is in poverty while the oil and gas companies continue to grow. The head of Nigeria's anti-corruption agency has estimated that during 2003, 70% of oil revenues, more than $14bn, was stolen or wasted. 7. On the streets of Warri, hawkers sell fuel illegally. Because of shortages and high prices, sellers are common. 8. Fighters with Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) brandish weapons near their camp in Oporoza. The movement vows to shut off oil if demands for access to the oil wealth in their territories and local control of resources aren't met. 9. Mend militants, who wear red-and-white knots as protection from Egbesu, the Ijaw god of war, have in the past year intensified a guerrilla offensive. Hostages and casualties cause oil prices to rise. 10. An oil spill, polluting groundwater and ruining cropland, from a well owned by Shell that had been left abandoned for over 25 years. Badly maintained equipment is the cause of many leaks, but oil operators blame sabotage, saying oil spills are caused for compensation money. Last year, Friends of the Earth Netherlands and four Nigerian farmers brought a compensation case against Shell over environmental degradation. Friends of the Earth claims the decades of oil spills are not accidents but represent a pattern of systematic pollution.

Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta Photographies d'Ed KASHI, tirées de Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta PowerHouse Books, 2008 http://www.reportageetphoto.fr/2011/04/04/vite-vu-la-malediction-de-lor-noir-par-ed-kashi/

LE BASSIN DU NIGER

Carte topographique du Nigeria