Nick Ashton-Jones, with Oronto Douglas and Susi Arnott

“ The worst that can happen is that soil is removed to neighbouring land where healthy vegetation holds it, and it is not lost to the ecosystem.
Thus shifting agriculture in pre-modern times can be honestly described as agroforestry.
A major feature of the arable farming landscape is the oil-palms (sometimes planted, but usually opportunist) which farmers maintain at 2 or 3 to the hectare, and palm oil and kernel production, using primitive methods, is a long standing activity. ”

“ Thus a vicious cycle commenced: growth of a human farming population on a fixed area of land, causing fallow periods to become shorter and thus the sandy, easily leached soils to become increasingly degraded, demanding harder work for lower yields of cassava which is all that can be grown on the impoverished soils. With each cycle the soils become more impoverished and the pressure on the land becomes greater, while the population continues to grow. ”

“ The problems of the people of Botem-Tai and Ogoni are not helped by the poor general economic condition of Nigeria and the inefficiency of the government system that is unable to maintain public services in rural areas. Moreover, the rural aid that comes into Nigeria bypasses communities like Botem-Tai, which might, for instance, have been expected to benefit from the European Community oil palm belt project, that in the early 1990s was largely diverted to new agro-industrial projects rather than to the small, poor palm fruit, oil and kernel producers. ”

“ The sandy nature of the Ogoni soils is why clearing the forest for agriculture results in a very rapid loss of the humus that is essential to the structure and nutrient status of sandy soils; regular burning ensures that very little humus is returned to the soil. Typically, early high yields crash and it is very difficult to restore soil fertility. Impoverished soils, and low and declining yields are the recurrent complaint of the local people. ”

“ In fact, in conditions of sustainable population densities, shifting agriculture is ecologically very efficient, primarily because farmers do not shift to areas of primary forest but return to fallow land because it is easier to clear. ”

“ The natural ecosystem of the Ogoni Forest will have been unique for a number of reasons: it received higher rainfall than the forests in the otherwise similar conditions to the North between the Bonny and Imo Rivers. It was isolated from the lowland tropical rainforests further west, and by the swamp forests of the Niger Delta; and although the Imo River is not a significant boundary, there is only a narrow band of country with conditions similar to the Ogoni Plain, between the Imo and Cross Rivers. ”

“ The three most important agricultural activities are: growing cassava and processing garri: palm oil and palm kernel production; and raffia wine and gin production.
Arable Farming
Arable farming is dominated by cassava for the production of gari which is the staple diet. All the community land that is not riverine forest or forest shrines is farmed in the way common to most of Africa: land is left fallow until it is required (1 to 5 years depending upon availability) , when is slashed, cleared, burnt and planted. ”

“ They see themselves as part of a much wider world and their communications with that world are important (the bus stop is a very important place) , because it represents access to resources that are no longer available at home. But the intrusion of that world into their lives as represented by the oil industry is sensed as a threat: the oil flares, the pipelines and the oil spills are constantly referred to. ”

“ Generally the economic activity of the Botem-Tai district is dependent on declining agricultural yields. Cassava is the main crop and much food is imported including, rice, flower, beans, fish and palm oil. Incomes are low and it seems that much of the money in the communities comes from members who work in Port Harcourt and elsewhere. ”

“ The apparent correlation is a coincidence, but the growth of the oil industry, the wealth of which might have been expected to mitigate the rural decline, has created additional problems: oil industry infrastructure has taken away scarce agricultural land and pipelines have, in addition, blocked footpaths; oil spills contaminate water ”

“ Other primary industry includes hunting, fishing and timber felling. Hunting (except for grass-cutters - cane rats - and giant rats) and timber felling are not sustainable and are declining. This is because local forests are increasingly confined to a very narrow margin of swamp and seasonal swamp along the rivers, and even this is being cleared in places to give a quick dry-season cassava crop. ”

“ The young men particularly, hang aimlessly around their communities (sometime helping their mothers on the farm) or migrate to the slums of Port Harcourt in search of work and something better; we estimate that 40% of the males in Botem-Tai live outside the community. ”

“ Later, isolated forest exploiting settlements will have made small clearings and encouraged the local predominance of plants such as the raffia and oil palms, and bush mango.
However the overall impact of viable mankind would have been small and easily absorbed by the ecosystem: the area was generally inaccessible and unattractive to human settlement that preferred estuaries and riversides, and the open savannah country North of the rainforests. ”

“ From an environmental point of view loos are interesting because the occupant is essentially an agro-forester inasmuch as he is farming in an intensive sustainable manner with a mixture of trees and perennial and annual crops, on a very small piece of land. ”

“ Compound farming
Compound farming, around houses in the village and outside, benefits from household manure which is often quite deliberate: refuse being piled around yams and plantains. Soil profiles through compound gardens often show nearly a metre of black humus-rich soil above a well structured sandy-loam. ”

“ Such conditions are conducive to high animal biodiversity and although some of the larger mammals such as elephants may be discouraged (much to the relief of the farmer to whom they are a pest) primate densities may increase due to expanded food supplies, and species of non-forest birds will be attracted. ”

“ Our grandfathers know how to do these things. They would consult the gods and everything would be all right. We have sinned and that is why foreigners have come to spoil our land. We must retrace our steps. ”

“ The factory serves the company's inward looking philosophy nicely. A philosophy which papers over the social, economic and environmental problems which face the people of Ogoni and of the whole Niger Delta. Problems which have been caused by a Nigerian oil industry dominated by Shell. ”

“ Confirm that the oil blowout seen on the 23rd October is still flowing.
17.9 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STATUS
Except for schools, public services do not exist in Botem-Tai or in any of the communities that we visited in 1993/94. There is no piped water, no electricity and no health services.
Men, who make most of the decisions, run the society. The condition of women is wretched. They do most of the farm work; they process the gari (and in some communities there are no gari-grinders) ; they do all the cooking and they look after children ”

“ The natural soils of the Ogoni plain are Oxisols, the typical soils of the tropical rainforest, described in detail in Chapter 5.5.5. They develop in hot, rainy climates where there is regular downward movement of water, and where there are large amounts of added biomass. ”

“ Moreover, the populations of some of the slower moving animals such as the elephant and the giant pangolin will have been subject to his hunting, while his dogs would have worried smaller faster ground moving animal such as duikers. ”

“ They are deep, easy to till, and well-drained except in valley bottoms and low-lying depressions. These soils, known as Ogoni Sands, have a loamy sand surface layer underlain by a sandy-clay-loam sub-surface layer. ”