After two Shell oil spills in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s Bodo community suffered collapsed ecosystems and chronic environmental damage. A once bountiful agrarian community was left barren. No one was held accountable for the oil spill, and its devastating consequences, so the community took matters into its own hands. With support from Amnesty International, the Media Awareness and Justice Initiative trained 120 community people, pulled from 60 communities in Rivers and Bayelsa state, on baseline data and environmental monitoring. This training was able to provide key community groups with the needed tools to show evidence that Bodo community had suffered significant environmental damage due to crude oil spills and pollution
N-Map in collaboration with the Media Awareness and Justice Initiative produced this film as part of our Beneath the Surface series, created to inform rural communities facing mining about their rights, and empower them with legally sound strategies for protecting themselves.
Each video in the series features a relevant story from different communities around the world, and exposes the damaging effects of mining, while highlighting the power of unity in the face of powerful multinational corporations. The Bodo community has a message to anyone facing an extractive project: To protect yourself and the environment, collect environmental data before the project begins.