By Uruemu Favour,
Community Development Advocacy Foundation, CODAF, a Non-Governmental Organisation has urged the the federal government to step up monitoring strategies and enacts policies that will put an end to illegal and indiscriminate sand mining activities in the Niger Delta region.
According to the Organization, illegal and indiscriminate sand mining in the Niger Delta region if not properly monitored would cause havoc in the nearest future.
In a communique issued at the end of a one day town hall meeting, on Policy Dialogue Community Action Against Indiscriminate Sand Mining in the Niger/Delta region, reads, “Communities should demand for government approved license from intended sand miners and Environmental Impact Assessement, EIA reports to the satisfaction of host communities and relevant authorities before they could embark on mining.
“Federal and state government should set up policies and monitoring strategies that will ban the activities of illegal sand mining in the Niger Delta and it should make EIA mandatory for all sand miners to come up with a robust environmental management plan to tackle post dredging environmental changes and degradation.
“Corporations and influencial individuals in the society should be prevailed on by the relevant authorities to stop indiscriminate sand mining that is detrimental to community farmlands which has affected their source of livelihood.
The communique reads further that, “Indiscriminate sand mining has resulted to strong resistance and crises among the people and host Communities are losing their forests, vegetations and swanps to their activities and fishing farming have also been severely affected because these wetlands that serve as spawning and breeding ground for fishes are altered.
“The water is polluted and the people are helplessly subjected to drinking from polluted streams within the wetlands and the government actions against these activities have yielded little or no results and they also lack the understanding of the pattern of deforestation and land degradation as well as its impacts on climate change.
“Sand miners should cease activities immediately and conduct environmental impact evaluation and dredged sites should be reclaimed with full participation of the host communities.
“The government should review the environmental existing laws and institutionalize a common sand dredging procedures”
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