An ecological think tank organisation, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Tuesday, trained Okoro-Utip community in Ibeno LGA of Akwa Ibom state on environmental monitoring to checkmate incessant oil spillages in the area.
The organisation noted that the training becomes necessary due to decades of gas flaring and oil spills by the oil companies which negatively impacted on the host communities.
Speaking with newsmen at Okoro-Utip community hall Tuesday, the Project Lead of HOMEF, Mr. Stephen Oduware, noted that the organisation is determined to make the community conscious of their environment in order to mitigate the dangers of oil spills.
“You would recall that the environment is highly polluted here as a result of oil and gas exploration and exploitation here in Ibeno LGA.
“The people Okoro-Utip are now experiencing high wave of cancer that they don’t use to experience before. These people actually pay a true cost for the exploration and the exploitation going on in those fields.
“Okoro-Utip is one of the communities in the LGA that is highly impacted with the spill, so we came today to train the community people to learn how to monitor their environment.
“We train them on the basic indices for environmental monitoring, how they can know when things are going wrong in the community and most especially how to report and what to do with the report in terms of using the report for advocacy that will engender justice for them.”
Oduware said the community being predominantly fishers and farmers, is facing grave impact, adding that a lot of fishers can no longer go around their livelihood and most of their farms have become infertile and their crops are no longer yielding anymore.
