Humans view the environment as:
1. A resource bank that supplies them with the raw materials needed to
maintain their existence. These include food, water, energy, territory
and the materials to build shelter. Human also need resources and
energy to maintain social and technological structures.
2. A habitat that provides enough space for individual than any other
species.
3. A sink for wastes which include things as excreta, dead tissue, trash,
smoke and molehills. We humans leave more waste than other
species (Harrison, 1992).
However, the world has not being significantly the same since 10,000
BC and much of that change has been at human hands. The complex
nature of these changes are great. For instance as you look out of a
window on a 30minute journey in most part of the globe and endeavor
to identify all the ways in which what you see is made by humans greatly
seeking for resources and not the provision of a pristine nature. For the
present purpose, we are going to assume that the power to get a living
from our natural surroundings and to change them is conferred by the
success of human cultures in getting access to energy and that the levels
of energy use are a surrogate for levels of resource use.
Hunter-gatherers and environment
The activity of hunting and gathering by their very nature change plant
and animal populations. But the pressure exerted upon the populations is
usually such that if humans leave, then the biodata return to their
previous levels. It is in the humans' interest, too, that their exploitation
should never exceed their resource supply. It implies that human should
practice a type of management for sustained yield.
Through history some groups seem to have had ways of making sure that
they did not over-used. Plant and animal sources. Whereas other did not,
relying perhaps on their own very low population densities to bring about
only minimal effects (Simmons, 1993). An animal population under
natural environmental stress may not be able to cope with human hunting
pressure and this may become extinct. This seems to have happened in
several places throughout the world.
Industrialism And The Environment
The advent of the use of fossil fuels gave societies many tools with
which to affect their surroundings. The immense energy surpluses made
available from coal, oil and natural gas could in part be channeled into
getting at more and more resources progressively in accessible places.
Hence the advent of industrial society spread. However, the spread has
become more intensive in the heartlands such as Northern Europe, North
America and Japan. Thus, we can envisage the environmental
consequences of industrialization as a core and periphery model. We can
imagine a turn of the century industrial plant such as, a large coal mine
or perhaps a coke works or steel mill. The local environmental impacts
of these are dominated basically by the change in land use, and the local
air and water which are polluted in plumes moving downwind and
downstream from the plants (Simmons, 1993).
Nuclear Period
The scenarios for "nuclear winter" is an index to the devastation to our
environment that would be caused by even a modest 5000MT exchange
of thermonuclear weapons. The experience at Chernobyl and other
accidents have also made us to be aware of the potential for nuclear
contamination in the civil sphere. We have to recall that planned releases
of radioactivity also take place during the nuclear fuel cycle: the
sediments of the Irish seen is an instance of the highest concentrations in
the world of such materials outside direct human control (Simmons,
1993). –
None need doubt, therefore, that the earth we currently inherit is mainly
man-made at the land surface, and to an extent above this surface
including parts of the oceans. Still the fundamental fact is that
biogeochemical flows and cycles of energy, carbon and nitrogen are still
the basis of the human life-support system. We may have greatly
modified nature, we have by no means been able to replace it.
Genesis Of Environmental Management In Nigeria
Environmental management in Nigeria is as old as Nigeria herself,
however, 1900 has been mentioned as a modern date of its development
(Jaja, 1995). On the 22nd of January 1900, Sir Ralph Moor's
administration in southern Nigeria issued a policy circular no. 87 on the
management of the environment. The circular was based on conservation
and payment of royalties to local leaders in southern Nigeria. Several
other rules on forest management were enacted and enforced by forestry
inspectors who also became government's advisers.
By 1906 the forest reserves system had been formalized, -five prominent
ones are;
1. Olokemeji Reserve
2. Ibadan Reserve
3. Mawa Reserve
4. Illaro Reserve and
5. The Oshun River Reserve.
This same year, game, reserves were approved, the first three were in
Edo, Anambra and Cross River States. They are Gwato Game Reserve,
Anambra Greek Game Reserve and Oban Hills Game Reserve
respectively.
Environmental Management In Nigeria; Schools Of
Thought
There are various schools of thoughts associated with when
environmental management began in Nigeria.
The first school of thought says environmental management in Nigeria
began as a novel development. This school of thought may be termed as
the MONISTIC School of thought. They advocate that environmental
management in its proper sense, began in Nigeria just recently, since the
post-Nigerian civil war days (Jaja, 1993). Any thing done before then in
the name of environmental management was considered as waste and
devastation of Nigeria's environmental resources only for the benefit of
the industrial revolution in Europe.
The second school-of thought emphasises the relevance of the past for
the benefit of the present. This school of thought may be termed as the
DAULISTIC school of thought. Individuals in this school regard both
the past and the present as complementary in many respects. A student
(Sada) of this school of thought summed up his views and perhaps those
of others recently by dividing the management in Nigeria into two broad
phases.
1. the pre-development phase: 1900 - 1945
2. the development phase: 1945 – 1985
Agboola a student of this school sees no remarkable differences between
environmental awareness of the past years and those of modern times
except the inclusion of the environmental sub-sector concerning
"environmental planning and protection" in Nigeria's Fourth
Development Plan.
Dualists are of the view that the problems of environmental management
in Nigeria are basically buried in the colonial past. The past and the
present, they say, are relevant and must be viewed as such oifany further
meaningful development in environmental management is to be
achieved.
You may have noticed a difference between the monistic and dualistic
schools of thoughts. The former views the post-civil war's environmental
management one way perception the latter views pre and post colonial
days (two way perception).
However, Jaja (1995). observed that the dualistic school of thought may
be misleading in the sense that it fails to provide an opportunity for
drawing attention to the salient fact that Nigeria, like other developing
nations of the world, has not yet reached the third phase of
environmental management which is referred to as the system phase.
The third school of thought is the Holistic or three dimensional school of
thought. This school views management, including environmental
management as existing in three phases of development (Jaja, 1995).
These are the early phase, the later phase and the last or the most
developed phase. The last phase is the systems phase being used in
developed nations.
Historical Phases of Environmental Management in
Nigeria
Environmental management in Nigeria historically, may be grouped
under two phases. However, environmental management globally has
grown to three developmental phases. These phases are:
l. classical
2. neo-classical
3. systems
Nigeria is currently in the second phase (Jaja, 1995). In this section we
shall discuss the first two phases in relation to its historical progress in
Nigeria i.e. classical and Neo-classical phases.
Classical Phase
This phase has three basic developmental stages:
Stage one: 1900 – 1914
In its simplest form, environmental management was established
between 1900 - 1914. The techniques at this time include the use of
autocracy, rules extreme de-centralisation; imposition of imprisonment
with no option of fine at the slightest breach of the rules.
For instance, three Forest Guards were sent to prison for extorting money
from local people in Calabar.
Environmental management effort was directed to urban and rural
development which included, among other things, housing, building lines
control in European Reservation or Government Reservation Areas,
environmental sanitation in the urban and rural areas; control of open
spaces; control and management of industrial sites, mining site and
several other areas.
Stage Two: 1914 -1936
During this period, environmental management was neither focused on
any planned development programme nor on a systematic management
process. They were centralized and controlled from Lagos following the
amalgamation-of southern and Northern Nigeria in 1941. Four sectors
were identified and controlled centrallys these are:
l. agriculture
2. works services and general administration
3. industrial
4. social and environmental education.
In the agricultural sector, forest reserve establishment became a national
programme. Other sub-sectors include forest conservation, forest
regeneration and soil conservation projects. Projects such as management
of parks and gardens including village plantations through local chiefs
and native Administration (Kirk-Greene, 1970) were subsumed under
this section. Others are wildlife conservation and preservation, irrigation
and dams.
The works services and general administration sector assisted in the
direction of environmental management to ensure efficiency in road
construction, building drains and bridges in a form that assures safety to
traffic and reduced the incidence of flooding. Damage camps were
constructed at considerable distances and every road labourer was
assigned a minimum of three miles to maintain on the road by cutting of
tufts, grass on both sides of the road and by earth-filling of port-holes or
coal tarring of minor breeches on roads.
The works department cleared and maintained all waterways either
directly or through the native administration or local chiefs. Sea and river
banks were protected by means of breaks, in Calabar, Lagos and Port
Harcourt. Dredging of seas and rivers particularly in major port towns
were carried out to ensure navigable waterways, free access to port
services and less danger to shipping, marines and stevedores (Jaja 1995).
At this period, industrial pollution on the sea, air and land was apparently
uncontrollable. Management of effluents into the seas, rivers, lakes and
other water bodies had almost no attention.
Will it be out of place to say this is ignorance or limitation of this
generations knowledge of the consequences of pollution of water bodies?
Distribution of chlorinated water was popular only in large cities with
few communities benefiting from it. Noise pollution was unchecked in
the non-European areas but was totally banned in the Government
Reserved Areas (G.R.A.).
This period marked the spring-up of environmental management
institutions. Example includes: forestry school, Ibadan and the temporary
forestry school, Zaria.
Stage three: 1937 – 1950
Stage three marked a period of consolidation for environmental
management. - Planning was integrated for effective , environmental
management. This stage may be divided into two other steps.
Stage three - phase one: 1937 -1945
Isolated planning was notably employed in this phase, of note was the
planned forestry development scheme of 1937. This time, forestry
programmes and environmental management were closely planned and
integrated to a considerable extent to achieve better success. A policy
was formulated that 25% of total land area should be constituted into
forest reserves throughout Nigeria.
This arrangement became the model for forest reservation, forest
conservation and protection throughout Nigeria. Thus, this policy was to
be employed to check urban and rural development schemes, industrial
sites, roads, agricultural and property development in Nigeria until
Nigeria's independence in 1960.
Forestry programme and their associated environmental management
strategies were grouped into three zones:
1. the south
2. midland
3. the North
Each zone had Zonal Development Board to consider and regulate
matters of common interest to all the component provinces in a zone.
Between this period (1937 - 1945) the Forestry Action Plan for Nigeria
became the most important single organ for implementation and
management of Nigeria's environment. This blue print divided Nigeria
into three main belts of reserves and pointed out the strategies for
environmental management in a micro sense in the three zones.
In the southern zone, all mangrove forests, timber concessions, forests or
hilltops and steep slopes were reserved as long as the approval
percentage was not exceeded forests were classified into forest reserve
and subsumed in the environmental management schemes. Village
plantations were established through the effort of the local chiefs, emirs
and their native administration based on the ratio of one acre to every
five to ten adult males in the areas conserved.
The North had all Geza and Fakakaya lands constituted into forest
reserves. All farmers were mandated to separate their farmlands with
hedges and drought resistant trees. Every individual was mandated to
plant economic and shade trees along boundary lands, frontiers and
erosion prone zones.
The Action Plan, - aside from erosion control measures, provided for
control of bush fires, protection of further or boundary lands and
defacement of the plan by legislation.
Stage three phase two: 1946-1950
This phase marked the approval and implementation of the first limbs of
the 10 year plan of development and welfare for Nigeria. Nigeria was
lunched into the phase of planned, development and environmental
management. The four sectors already identified formed important
components of the 24 .major schemes in the plan (Jaja, 1985).
3.4.2 Neo-Classical Phase
This period of environmental management has being in Nigeria from
1951 to date. This phase will be sub-divided into three other periods, to
enable you have a clear and systematic understanding of this period.
These are:
This phase possesses some features which include, according to Jaja
(1985).
1. change from classical management procedure to human relations
approach
2. employment of human relations strategies
3. medium term planning strategies
4. popularisation education and environmental education
5. emphasis on environmental management on a wider
framework
6. introduction of the War Against indiscipline (WAI)
7. the birth of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, which later
led to the establishment of other Environmental protection Agencies
(EPAs) in the country.
The period (1951 - 1959) is of significance because it marked the major
turning point in the process of Nigeria's development generally. Former
structures for environmental management remained basically in place
except that Departments became Ministries and new corporations were
established to replace civil service functions.
Between 1960 - 1988, there were four Development Plans that
influenced environmental management after independence. The first post
independence National Development Plan (1962-68) had the Federal and
state Governments placing emphasis on environmental management.
Industries were beginning to emerge but little or no attention was paid to
pollution control, deforestation, soil erosion control, flooding and control
of slum.
1. 1951-1959
2. 1960-1987
3. 1988 to date
The second National Development Plan initially designed to serve the
post civil war objectives of reconstruction, rehabilitation and
reconciliation however, assisted financially the four main sectors
concerned with environmental management.
The Third Development Plan in Nigeria (1975-1980) provided more
funds for health and sanitation, water supply, sewage, flood
management, erosion, irrigation as well as infrastructures for
environmental management. For the first time, eleven River Basin
Development Authorities were set up with responsibility to plan, manage
and control agricultural lands, irrigation, food production, flood and
erosion control.
The Fourth National Development Plan (1981-85) also emphasized the
four identified environmental sectors mentioned earlier, but added
another sub-sector "environmental planning and protection". This forms
the background to several major developments which touch and concern
environmental management in Nigeria. Six of them that are important
are:
1. emphasis on environmental planning and protection designed to
check ecological imbalances with serious immediate and future
consequences.
These guidelines are:
(i) the loss of the erosion control, cooling, shading and watershed protection effects provided by trees, when they are
indiscriminately cut down to permit urban growth.
(ii) The conservation of flood problems and destruction of
important wildlife habitats and natural communities, when
marches and other wetlands are sand filled.
(iii) The terracing of hillsides without vegetation, increased
erosion and sedimentation, cause foundations to crack, and
occasionally result in severe mudslides.
(iv) Serious withdrawal of underground water in coastal areas
allows intrusion of salt water in domestic water supplies.
(v) Business organisations are stimulated to establish
industries in urban centres with little consequence of water,
air and land pollution.
(vi) Smoke stacks and tailpipes pollute the air, and industries
and communities discharge untreated wastes into water,
with serious effects on human health, vegetation, wildlife
and property.
2. The second major development was the emphasis on the need for
a national environmental planning and protection policy. It was
produced and lunched in 1988.
3. The third development plan which emanated from the second, is
concerned with articulated goals, the need to formulate and
produce for guidance of implementing ministries, departments and
other agencies connected with environmental management, As
earlier articulated statement of national goals on environmental
management had remained for long unfulfilled.
4. The fourth major development was the establishment of a coordinating national agency, the Federal Environmental Protection
Agency with specified goals and objectives. The essence of
setting up this agency was to meet the needs and fill the -gap left
by the defunct provincial Development Communities, Area
committees and the Development Board of the 1930s and 1940s.
5. The fifth major development was the direct involvement of
Nongovernmental organizations in environmental management.
Worthy of note are oil companies, the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF) based in Britain and the Nigerian Conservation
Foundation (NCF) to mention but a few.
6. The sixth important development was the birth of Environmental
Education. Although this had being out before but from 1990 a
full-blown campaign on Environmental Education had been
integrated into the Nigerian University Diploma and Degree
programmes. Some pioneering institutions involved include Lagos
State University, University of Calabar and University of
Agriculture, Abeokuta.
CONCLUSION
This unit has been able to trace the historical development of
environmental management in Nigeria. The idea of environmental
management has been in Nigeria from as early as 1900. However, the
form in which it takes vary from colonial and post-colonial days.
Environmental management has undergone various stages and processes
which had contributed one way or the other into the development of
improved environmental management policy and practices that are
operative in Nigeria today. Without passing through these process we
may not have gotten to where we are today. Yet there are several grounds
uncovered in the area of environs
