Humankind cannot achieve happiness in a degraded environment; living in harmony with other forms of life (as in some traditional relationships between people and their environment) is in itself a human right. Furthermore, every individual and responsible human being has an equal right to happiness, regardless of his or her wealth.

ALL ECOSYSTEMS ARE NOW HUMAN ECOSYSTEMS
This concept is central to the ERA philosophy.

Because of humankind's growing dominance of the Biosphere, all ecosystems are now ultimately human ecosystems.Ecological problems arise when an ecosystem is seen, in ignorance, as something separate from humankind.

ENVIRONMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS DEPEND UPON CONSERVATION
Conservation is the wise use of natural resources with due regard for the rights of as yet unborn generations.  The best conservators, with the most practical and genuine interest in the future of the local environment, will be local people.

CONSERVATION IS BEST ACHIEVED THROUGH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND PARTICIPATION
This was articulated in Agenda 21 of the 1992 Earth Summit.  The Summit brought together more heads of government than any previous meeting in history, to focus world attention on environmental issues – the most critical issues we face as a global community. Agenda 21 is the global plan of action adopted to address those issues.

The real hallmark of the Earth Summit was the emphasis on broad public participation, and the success of Agenda 21 depends on the continued participation of the public in decisions that affect their lives, both nationally and internationally.

Agenda 21 states that sustainable development is the way to reverse both poverty and environmental destruction. Achieving this will demand broad public participation in policy development, combined with greater accountability; individuals, groups and organisations need to know about, and participate in, environment and development issues affecting their communities.

Thus ERA agrees that Sustainable Development equals

Participation + Wealth + Knowledge
Empowerment of Local people
Conservation

Wealth creation without local knowledge and participation does not equal sustainable development. If local people are kept ignorant and unable to participate in or benefit from the creation of wealth, environmental degradation will result. Poor people may even directly damage the environment, if they cannot afford to think about tomorrow. Sustainable development of local communities, involving the elimination of absolute poverty and of gross income inequity, is therefore vital to any real conservation.

LOCAL PEOPLE MUST BE EMPOWERED FOR THIS TO SUCCEED
ERA believes this is the key to sustainable development and conservation.

ERA aims to achieve this through the establishment of Community Resource Centres (CRCs). These are initiated with the help of NGOs, but are ultimately maintained by the communities themselves. Once established, a good CRC will be a focus for the accumulation and use of knowledge, and for the creation of wealth. It may also enable the community to attract any available aid funding and help. CRCs can become centres of innovation, but essentially they are places where community members (as individuals or as groupings) can empower themselves with knowledge and access the tools of communication to make things happen.

'Local people' may of course include immigrants, if they define themselves as local and see their future and that of their children as being bound up with the locality.

LOCAL INTERESTS MUST HAVE PRIMACY
People living in a locality have an investment in its long-term future. Outsiders, whether in government or non-government agencies, are more likely to be interested in short and medium-term considerations.

Outside interests may have rights that must be taken into consideration. However, local interests are more likely than any others to be concerned about genuine conservation and must take priority when decisions are being made.

ERA KNOWLEDGE IS BASED UPON PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH
We have seen that participation is a right, enshrined by the Earth Summit (to which Nigeria is a signatory). However, it is essential to sustainable development for very practical as well as ideological reasons.

Development projects can only be effective if they are based on true (rather than pre-conceived) facts, and if the local people for whom the projects are supposed to be designed are involved in project planning, management and monitoring. The first step is research, and the 'facts' about any situation will only be relevant if the people concerned are involved in their gathering and presentation.

Development without such participation can go terribly wrong. Numerous examples of development projects in the Niger Delta (indeed throughout Nigeria, Africa and the world) have failed because the development process is in the hands of outsiders.However well-meaning, most outside agents eventually leave and have no permanent commitment to places which are not their own. Development processes are more likely to succeed when Local People are in control, because they have to be committed and because they can only blame themselves when things go wrong.

Sustainable development therefore means empowerment. The political and economic empowerment of people in a locality allows them to control development and use its devices (institutional structures, funds, marketing, etc.) themselves, in order to create the local wealth which maintains the institutions of empowerment and the infrastructure needed for further wealth creation.

However, the first stage in any such work is participatory research.

WHAT IS PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH?
ERA aims to be the voice of Local People, but it can only be their voice if it has their trust and if it speaks their truth. Gathering relevant knowledge comes from throwing off all preconceptions and by a humble immersion into local life.

ERA's approach is necessarily based upon what ERA people are able to do in the field with limited resources. This means getting to know a community by living within it, in order to feel as far as possible what it may be like to be a member of that community. This means sleeping, eating and washing in the same way, and travelling in the same way – whether by bush-taxi and speed boat or, more likely, by foot and canoe, no guarantees, but this is the best way to win trust and friendship and, with luck, to get at the truth of a situation.

This approach to getting local knowledge seems to be dangerously informal, despite having the formal name of 'Participatory Research' or PR. Nonetheless, the process has a respectable academic history and ERA workers approach it seriously.

ERA

Environmental Rights Action (ERA is a Nigerian advocacy non-governmental organization founded on January 11, 1993 to deal with environmental human rights issues in Nigeria.

The founding members of the organization are NNIMMO BASSEY, an architect, poet and civil rights campaigner; ORONTO DOUGLAS, an environmental human rights lawyer; GODWIN OJO, a community resource developer/environmentalist and human rights defender; and NICK ASHTON-JONES, a specialist human ecologist.

Membership of ERA is built around projects and is open to environmentally conscious Nigerians and their supporters.

ERA is the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) as well as the co-ordinating NGO for Oilwatch International, the global network of groups concerned about the effects of oil on the environment of people who live in oil-producing regions. The organization is also a member of the African  Forest Action Network (AFAN). ERA is a 1998 winner of the Sophie Prize, the new international award in environment and development.

The organization is dedicated to the defence of human ecosystems in terms of human rights, and to the promotion of environmentally responsible governmental, commercial, community and individual practice in Nigeria through the empowerment of local people.

ERA has two purposes:

• to act as a peaceful pressure group, campaigning for change in the policies of governmental, non-governmental and commercial organizations where those policies are likely to act against environmental human rights
• to enable local people to defend their environmental human rights in law.

Maintained by Essential Action's Boycott Shell/Free Nigeria campaign
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