Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author, and poet, who chaired Friends of the Earth International from 2008 through 2012 and was executive director of Environmental Rights Action for two decades.
Nnimmo Bassey was one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2009. In 2010, Nnimmo Bassey was named a Laureate of the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2012, he was awarded the Rafto Prize. He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of York, UK, in 2019. He serves on the advisory board and is director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an environmental think tank and advocacy organization.
In this interview the director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nnimmo Bassey, warned of failure to take comprehensive action to preserve, maintain and sustain healthy biodiversity in Nigeria will aggravate food crisis, environmental pollution, health, climate change, and other issues affecting the lives of Nigerians as he spoke on salient issues affecting the environment.
In this interview, Nnimmo Bassey talks about the history of exploitation of the African continent, and the failure of the international community to recognize the climate debt owed to the Global South.
The essays here contribute to developing and deepening an understanding of the ecological challenges ravaging Nigeria, Africa, and our world today. They illustrate the global nature of these terrors. These essays are not meant just to enable for coffee table chatter: they are intended as calls to action, as a means of encouraging others facing similar threats to share their experiences. Set out in seven sections, this book of 54 essays deals with deep ecological changes taking place primarily in Nigeria but with clear linkages to changes elsewhere in the world. The essays are laid out with an undergird of concerns that characterize the author’s approach to human rights and environmental justice advocacy.
Arguing that the climate crisis confronting the world today is rooted mainly in the wealthy economies’ abuse of fossil fuels, indigenous forests, and global commercial agriculture, this important book investigates how Africa has been exploited and how Africans should respond for the good of all. As it examines the oil industry in Africa and probes the causes of global warming, this record warns of its insidious impacts and explores false solutions. Demonstrating that the issues around natural resource exploitation, corporate profiteering, and climate change must be considered together if the planet is to be saved, the book suggests how Africa can overcome the crises of environment and global warming.
Nnimmo Bassey is the director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation in Nigeria. Join us for the launch of the new Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South on February 10 at 9 am (EST). Register for the virtual event here: https://bit.ly/southmanifesto
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The struggle for environmental justice in Africa is complex and broad. It is the continuation of the fight for the liberation of the continent and for socio-ecological transformation. It is a fact that the environment is our life: The soil, rivers, and air are not inanimate or lifeless entities. We are rooted and anchored in our environment. Our roots are sunk into our environment and that is where our nourishment comes from. We do not see the Earth and her bountiful gifts as items that must be exploited, transformed, consumed, or wasted. The understanding of the Earth as a living entity and not a dead thing warns that rapacious exploitation that disrupts her regenerative powers are acts of cruelty or ecocide.