The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Oil and Gas Host Communities, Senator Benson Agadaga, says with the effective work the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project(HYPREP) is doing in Ogoniland, life is returning gradually to the area.
Senator Agadaga, who gave the indication while addressing newsmen at the end of a two-day tour of some HYPREP project sites in Ogoniland by members of the committee, said HYPREP under the watch of the Project Coordinator is doing an effective work in Ogoniland.
The Senator, who planted symbolic mangroves at the Bomu Shoreline after visiting it and the Goi Shoreline, described the visit by the Senators as tourism of sort.
He said he was happy and excited that life is coming back to Ogoniland with the ongoing clean-up of oil polluted sites in the area by HYPREP, contending that he was delighted to identify himself with the course of replenishing nature and restoring life in Ogoniland, at the instance and initiative of the Federal Government in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP).
He noted that the Senators discovered in the course of the visit that the devastation and damages done to the Ogoni ecosystem are being handled while the environment is being restored, as both fauna and flora are being restored gradually.
He disclosed that the Senators were able to buy some periwinkle shells at the Bomu and Goi Shorelines from local dwellers who were fetching them, adding that before now, nobody could see the periwinkles in the area.
"That is to show the level of the devastation of the ecosystem in the Niger Delta occasioned by oil pollution. I want to thank God for a day like this.I want to thank the Project Coordinator for doing an effective work here. I believe that within the time limit, we would be able to advance to a level where the whole world would see that what we are doing here is effective," he said.
Also commenting, the Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Prof Deinibarini Zabbey said what the agency is carrying out at the Ogoni shorelines is not revegetation and planting of trees but mangrove restoration by planting multi species of mangrove that are common to the region like the red, the white and the black mangroves.
According to him, what HYPREP is doing is restoration of the ecosystem, to ensure that both animals and plants that dwell in the habitat are restored.
He said he was personally happy and delighted that the committee members visited the sites to see shoreline clean-up in action in Gio, "to encourage us to do our best, to restore the oil degraded mangroves."
Zabbey further hinted that the Ogoni mangrove restoration project is the world largest of oil degraded mangroves, stressing that HYPREP is restoring about 3,000 hectares of mangroves, starting with the pilot restoration in Bomu with 560 hectares.
The Project Coordinator said he is very excited seeing other species coming back to the creek in response to HYPREP's restoration programme, and defended the fact that some local dwellers have started early enough to harvest periwinkles at the shorelines, adding that the agency would ensure that there is a balance, in such a way that the picking of periwinkles in the newly restored environment would not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment.
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