Theorizing (mal)adaptation

The natural environment is a critical form of livelihood capital, providing ecological services for humans and non-human species. Environmental conditions determine the livelihood strategies of human communities, with changes in these conditions causing corresponding modifications in livelihood activities and altering entire social structures (Cline Reference Cline2007). The cumulative modifications and re-modifications of livelihood systems in response to environmental transformations are what is referred to as adaptation. Livelihood adaptation strategies, according to Xu et al. (Reference Xu, Deng, Guo and Liu2018), refer to the choice and combination of activities that households adopt to maintain their livelihoods.

While adaptation involves the modification and alteration of livelihood activities, it seeks to enhance livelihood security by reducing communities’ pre-existing socio-ecological vulnerabilities (Brooks and Adger Reference Brooks and Adger2005). This encompasses the pursuit of livelihood practices that promote the viability of socio-ecological systems, quality of life and ability to manage future risks (Schipper Reference Schipper2020). Adaptation can be either planned or autonomous (ibid.); it can also produce either positive/sustainable (Davies Reference Davies1996) or negative/maladaptive outcomes. Planned adaptation is driven by actions detailed in formal and structured response plans, while autonomous adaptation involves organic responses driven by local knowledge utilized by vulnerable groups to mitigate the impacts of environmental changes. On the one hand, adaptation can be said to be positive or sustainable when it contributes to environmental, social and economic sustainability. On the other hand, maladaptation or negative adaptation happens when adaptation strategies undermine sustainable outcomes and create conditions that increasingly expose the human population to environmental precarities. According to Schipper (Reference Schipper2020), maladaptation occurs through one of the following adaptation outcomes: rebounding vulnerability (when an adaptation strategy implemented by a group makes them more vulnerable and undermines successful adaptation in the future), shifting vulnerability (when an adaptation strategy redistributes vulnerability to others who are non-implementers or non-beneficiaries of the strategy) and negative externalities (when an adaptation strategy creates new problems).

Ethnographic mapping of research sites

The Niger Delta is geographically located in the southernmost part of Nigeria and is characterized by a mix of freshwater swamps and forests, saltwater mangrove swamps and sandy ridges, with many creeks, rivers and estuaries. The region is associated with fishing, farming and mangrove harvesting, which form the basic livelihood systems for over 60 per cent of its inhabitants (UNDP 2006). Other ancillary livelihood activities include hunting, trading, picking seafood, carving canoes, crafts and logging mangrove wood.

This study was conducted in selected Niger Delta states (Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers) that constitute the core areas for oil and gas infrastructure and have disproportionately been impacted by the negative environmental impacts of crude oil and gas extraction. Six oil-producing communities were sampled for the research: Ogboinbiri and Polaku communities in Bayelsa State; Bille and Bodo communities in Rivers State; and for Delta State, Kokodiagbene and Umutu communities (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Map of Nigeria’s Niger Delta showing the study sites.

These communities were purposively sampled as areas hosting oil extractive sites, and the selection of two communities per state was informed by the need to ensure geo-linguistic and livelihood representativeness of the sample owing to the diversity of the population in the Niger Delta. This approach enabled me to effectively categorize and sample communities based on fishing and farming activities, while at the same time ensuring a wider representation of multiple geo-linguistic and ethnic nationalities in the study.

Bodo community is made up of about thirty-six villages situated in Gokana local government area of Rivers State. The Bodo people are of Ogoni extraction. The primary livelihood activities of the Bodo people are fishing, farming and palm wine production. The men are more engaged in fishing and palm wine production, while women concentrate on mixed farming and mangrove harvesting. Oil exploration in Ogoni started in 1958 with the arrival of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in the area. Specifically, Ogoni land hosts the Trans-Niger Pipeline (TNP), which transports crude oil to the Bonny crude oil export terminal, which is operated by SPDC. The TNP traverses the land, creeks and waterways of Bodo community. Despite the halting of crude oil extraction on Ogoni land since 1993 due to popular protests against SPDC’s operations in the area, oil spills remain a common occurrence, with Bodo disproportionately impacted. In 2008, oil leakages from two spill incidents introduced about 500,000 barrels of crude oil into the Bodo environment (Pegg and Zabbey Reference Pegg and Zabbey2013). In response, the community – represented by a British law firm, Leigh Day – filed a suit in the UK High Court against SPDC, the operator of the facility. The court ruled in favour of the community and SPDC was made to pay US$83.4 million in compensation for the impact of the oil spill in the community. Irrespective of the financial compensation, the outcome of these spills continues to impact the livelihoods and health of Bodo people (Ogbonna and Origbe Reference Ogbonna and Origbe2021; Fentiman and Zabbey Reference Fentiman and Zabbey2015).

The ancient Bille kingdom, located in Degema local government area of Rivers State, is made up of eleven major villages and forty satellite fishing settlements. The Bille people, who are of Ijaw extraction, largely depend on fishing and the extraction of mangrove forest resources for their livelihoods. While the men engage in several types of fishing, such as cast net, drag net, hooks and diverse fish traps, women are engaged in picking seafood. Oil extraction in Bille started in the late 1950s with the arrival of SPDC in the area. The community hosts twenty-four oil well heads and two flow stations: the Awoba oilfield (Bille 2) and the Bille 1 oilfield, which is currently operated by Newcross Exploration and Production and Eroton Exploration and Production following SPDC’s divestment of its assets in the area. Bille and its environs are severely impacted by massive oil spillages that result in the destruction of mangrove forests (O’Farrell et al. Reference O’Farrell, O’Fionnagáin, Babatunde, Geever, Codyre, Murphy, Spillane and Golden2025), with associated livelihood and health risks for the community (Simbi-Wellington and Chukunda Reference Simbi-Wellington and Chukunda2019).

Polaku is an Ijaw fishing and farming community located on the Taylor Creek, which flows into the Nun River in Gbarain kingdom, Bayelsa State. The Gbarain kingdom plays host to the Gbarain-Ubie Gas Gathering Project, operated by SPDC. Specifically, the gas gathering project, which is centrally located in Obunagha, a neighbouring village to Polaku, produces negative environmental externalities for the entire Gbarain area, impacting local livelihoods and health (Kwen et al. Reference Kwen, Augustus and Raimi2024; Ogamba et al. Reference Ogamba, Charles and Izah2021).

Ogboinbiri is an Ijaw community located on the Apoi Creek, in the Apoi kingdom of Southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa State. Fishing and farming are the traditional livelihood practices; people alternate between the two activities during the annual flood and dry seasons. Ogboinbiri community is a hub for oil and gas production; it hosts the Seibou Deep Facility, operated by SPDC, and the Ogboinbiri Flow Station and Gas Plant, currently operated by OANDO plc following divestment of the assets of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC). Oil spillages and gas flaring have severely impacted the Ogboinbiri environment and continue to undermine socio-economic activities in the community (Atalawei and Gobo Reference Atalawei and Gobo2020).

Kokodiagbene is an Ijaw community located on the Escravos River, in the Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South local government area of Delta State. The traditional livelihood activity of the Kokodiagbene people is predominantly fishing. The community plays host to multinational oil companies, with SPDC operating the facilities at Jones Creek and Chevron Nigeria operating the flow station at Utunana area of the community.

Umutu, also known as Igili community, is located in Ukwuani local government area of Delta State. The Umutu people are from the Ndokwa ethnic group of the Niger Delta. The traditional livelihood activity of the Umutu people is predominantly mixed-crop farming based on staple crops such as yam (locally called umi), maize, cassava, oil palm and so on. Behind the community flows the Ethiope River, which links the community to other neighbouring communities from Umu-aja to Sapele. The community, which shares similar histories of oil spillages and gas flaring (Oseji Reference Oseji2011), hosts the Umutu/Asuokpo marginal oilfields under Oil Mining Licence 38. SPDC initially operated these marginal oilfields, including Umutu 1 to Umutu 6 as well as the Umutu-Ebedei gas plant. These are now divided between Platform Petroleum, which operates a flow station, PNG Gas, which operates the gas plant, and Newcross Exploration and Production.

Research methods

This article is based on several months of ethnographic research in the Niger Delta region. The study adopted a qualitative research design for data generation and analysis in exploring the lived experiences of households in relation to crude oil extraction and the diverse adaptation approaches they have relied on as responses to crude oil-induced oil and gas pollution. For data collection, three interrelated approaches were utilized: first, an observation technique was used to document the visible environmental transformations associated with oil extraction and visual evidence was collected to show the extent of damage done in polluted areas. Also, this technique enabled me to observe the study participants in their natural settings, interacting with their environment through daily livelihood activities in response to pollution. Second, the study relied on in-depth face-to-face oral interviews to document the lived experiences of households who, by sharing their life histories, demonstrated how their environment had changed over the years due to oil extraction and the ways in which their fishing and farming activities had been altered as a result. Third, focus group discussions (FGDs) were utilized to elicit the opinion of groups of individuals in each community; this enabled me to generate more robust and diverse data on themes such as the impact of oil extraction on farmers and fishermen, and how they responded in different communities. My positionality as an Ijaw native of the Niger Delta provided a robust insider perspective, which meant that I could more easily participate, observe and infer meanings from the shared lived experiences of the research interlocutors subsisting in and near polluted rivers, creeks and farmlands. However, a decent level of separation was observed to ensure that my own assumptions and biases were detached from the lived experiences of the participants.

The purposive sampling technique was used to recruit interlocutors in the study based on their positions in their respective communities, mainly as community leaders, as well as their knowledge of the issues under study, primarily as victims of pollution; these included fishermen and farmers. For the data generation, six participants were interviewed in each community, making a total of thirty-six participants across the six communities; these included community chiefs, youth leaders, women leaders, chairs of community development committees (CDCs), opinion leaders and representatives of community-based organizations. In addition, one FGD made up of seven participants was conducted per community. The FGDs were conducted with livelihood groups – i.e. fishing groups and farming groups – as relevant for each community. A total of six FGDs were conducted across the six communities studied. The interviews and FGDs were conducted and tape-recorded with the consent of the research interlocutors. These were transcribed, coded and analysed using the thematic analysis technique, with categories of meaning and themes generated with the aid of NVivo 12 software. The thematic analysis approach involves the identification of meaningful themes through the reading and re-reading of transcribed data.

Narratives on oil, pollution and livelihoods

The impacts of the negative environmental transformations arising from several decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta are disproportionately felt by local fishermen and farmers whose livelihoods are almost completely destroyed by perennial oil spills and gas flaring. The sampled communities share similar experiences of oil and gas pollution, which has severely reduced fishing and farming yields due to polluted rivers and farmlands. Empirical evidence suggests that high-level hydrocarbon pollution is reported in the sampled communities, particularly in Bodo, Bille and Ogboinbiri, where oil spills have significantly destroyed rivers, mangrove forests and farmlands (O’Farrell et al. Reference O’Farrell, O’Fionnagáin, Babatunde, Geever, Codyre, Murphy, Spillane and Golden2025; Ogbonna and Origbe Reference Ogbonna and Origbe2021; Fentiman and Zabbey Reference Fentiman and Zabbey2015; Pegg and Zabbey Reference Pegg and Zabbey2013). In Polaku, studies have revealed that gas flaring results in heavy metal concentration on surface water in Taylor Creek (Kwen et al. Reference Kwen, Augustus and Raimi2024; Ogamba et al. Reference Ogamba, Charles and Izah2021), while in Umutu it has reportedly led to poor air quality (Oseji Reference Oseji2011). The impacts of widespread oil spills and gas flaring in these communities mainly affect community residents, who continually encounter diminished fishing and farming yields (Ogbonna and Origbe Reference Ogbonna and Origbe2021; Atalawei and Gobo Reference Atalawei and Gobo2020; Pegg and Zabbey Reference Pegg and Zabbey2013).

Figure 2. Boy fishing in a creek polluted with crude oil, Kokodiagbene, Delta State.

The frequency and severity of oil pollution in the study communities are clearly visible: during fieldwork, I observed first hand crude oil pollution on the riverbanks and in the mangrove forests surrounding Ogboinbiri, Bille, Bodo and Kokodiagbene communities. Figure 2 shows a typical example of oil pollution in Kokodiagbene community. In addition to water and land pollution, the offensive stench of crude oil and hydrocarbon fumes constantly pollute the air in these communities. Similarly, unquenched flames from gas flare stacks in Ogboinbiri, Polaku-Gbarain and Umutu were conspicuous. Drawing from the lived experiences of members of these communities, a ninety-one-year-old retired fisherman, who was the oldest person in the community, provided an account of environmental transformation in Kokodiagbene:

The old man’s account demonstrates local knowledge of the environment and how heavy reliance on traditional livelihood practices such as fishing and farming has increased the vulnerability of households to environmental transformations arising from oil spills and gas flaring. The implications of this adverse environmental pollution were further buttressed during the FGD session with fishermen in Bille.

The deleterious impacts of oil spills and gas flaring have also posed a severe threat to the livelihoods of farming households in the study communities. Most farmers in Umutu, Polaku and Bodo communities reported significant changes, such as discoloration of crop leaves, dryness of leaves, soil rigidity and poor crop yield. Furthermore, in communities with operational gas flare stacks such as Umutu, Ogboinbiri and Polaku, farmers reported severe impacts on crop productivity due to heat and soot pollution from flaring (see Figure 3). During the FGD session with farmers in Polaku community, these issues were clearly expressed:

Figure 3. Gas flaring next to farms in Polaku and Obunagha communities, Bayelsa State.

Besides oil spills and gas flaring directly impacting agricultural productivity and fishing, the findings from the study indicate that oil extraction has a negative impact on the entire socio-ecological balance in these communities. The data shown in Analytical Framework 1 (Figure 4) reveals that gas flaring, oil spills, seismic activity and dredging activity by the oil companies produce deleterious environmental effects that undermine the livelihoods, health, and well-being of human and non-human biodiversity in the communities. It was also revealed that acid rain from gas flaring destroys vegetation and contaminates surface water, while the emission of greenhouse gases scales up climate change effects. The intense heat emanating from gas flaring was reported to have displaced forest animals, making it more difficult for hunters to pursue their livelihoods, while associated vibrations destroy houses: there is evidence of cracked walls and corroded roofing sheets in these communities. In addition, the dredging of creeks and rivers by oil companies in Polaku and Ogboinbiri communities was reported to have contributed to coastal erosion and flooding, leading to the inundation of farmlands, silting of fishponds and destruction of houses. Community members also reported that seismic operations by oil companies, which involve the use of explosives for oil prospecting, create noise pollution that leads to the displacement of wildlife and, by extension, biodiversity loss and erosion of indigenous environmental knowledge systems.

Figure 4. Analytical Framework 1: Livelihood impacts of oil and gas extraction in the Niger Delta.

Source: NVivo output based on interviews and FGDs.

Living in – and with – oil and gas pollution

This section of the article presents households’ livelihood adaptation strategies to oil and gas pollution in the study area. With the environmental and livelihood impacts of oil and gas extraction well established, it becomes pertinent to explore the numerous ways in which communities learn to live with pollution and their efforts at maintaining their livelihoods. The study revealed that the different stakeholders – such as the host communities, the Nigerian government and IOCs – had planned few or no actions for adaptation. For the impacted communities, the financial resources and technical expertise available to pursue planned environmental remediation and sustainable livelihood programmes are grossly insufficient. On their part, IOCs and the Nigerian government, which are the main perpetrators of oil spills and gas flaring, adopt a short-term approach that does very little in terms of addressing the issues of pollution and livelihood protection. In most cases, IOCs are slow to respond to oil spills; when they eventually do, clean-ups in the affected areas are haphazard, and, in situations when compensation is paid to victims, this is usually inadequate, especially because damages associated with oil spills are usually under-reported and underestimated (Pegg and Zabbey Reference Pegg and Zabbey2013). The Nigerian government relies on the top-down approach of deploying institutionalized development interventions as panaceas, usually as an afterthought. This approach resonates with the creation of regional development agencies such as the Oil Minerals Producing Area Development Commission (OMPADEC) and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) (Omotola Reference Omotola2007). The failure of a combination of approaches taken by the government and by IOCs during the long years of widespread agitation by host communities indicated that there was a need for a total re-engineering of interventions geared towards addressing the region’s issues. This paved the way for a more democratic or bottom-up approach in the form of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU), which gives communities significant control over their development. Despite this, the profit-seeking agenda of IOCs makes the GMoU a structural development framework that masks the tacit goal of securing social licences in order to operate (Okoroba and Jack Reference Okoroba and Jack2024). In addition, the undue influence of IOCs and local elite corruption renders the GMoU ineffective in tackling the fundamental environmental and livelihood crisis in the region (Ololajulo Reference Ololajulo2020; Omotola Reference Omotola2007). Due to these failed development programmes, coupled with the near absence of planned adaptation interventions, households in the study area had to rely on ad hoc adaptation strategies, emblematic of Schipper’s (Reference Schipper2020) notion of autonomous adaptation discussed earlier. Three autonomous adaptation strategies were identified; these are discussed in detail below.

On-farm adaptation strategies

Farming has been the predominant traditional livelihood activity of the communities in the study area for centuries, particularly in Bodo, Umutu, Polaku and Ogboinbiri. It constitutes a critical part of the cultural and historical identities of these communities, which makes it difficult for people to completely give up on the practice due to pollution. The study identified several alterations in farming practices among households, which I refer to as on-farm adaptation strategies. These are illustrated in Analytical Framework 2 (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Analytical Framework 2: On-farm adaptation strategies.

Source: NVivo output based on interviews and FGDs.

A prominent strategy to mitigate the impact of oil spills and gas flaring was for farmers to move farming activities away from polluted areas. Describing the practice, the CDC chairman of Ogboinbiri community noted that distancing farming activities from oil drilling reduces the impacts:

We now farm across the other big river close to our community boundary from which you came in from; the heat from the gas flare cannot go and affect the crops there.Footnote ⁷

Also, in communities where farmlands are limited, farmers have resorted to leasing cultivatable lands in other communities with little or no pollution. This creates an extra burden for farmers who have to raise capital to pay rent.

The study also revealed that the impact of oil pollution varied among crop species. For instance, most respondents in the study communities noted that, whereas yam (Dioscorea spp.), cocoyam (Colocasia spp.), corn (Zea mays) and sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) were among the worst hit crops, cassava (Manihot esculenta) and plantain (Musa spp.) were the most resilient crops in the study area. This means that farmers now rely heavily on cultivating the most resilient crops; they also seek out improved seedlings of such crops to increase productivity. This narrative was prominent during the FGD with farmers in Bodo community:

We now rely on improved seedlings, as every day there are new breeds of cassava coming into our markets. There is one in the community which they call ‘Alesa’, named after the community in Eleme. It is highly productive, and harvest is expected to be between six and eight months of planting.Footnote ⁸

Shifting cultivation is another predominant strategy adopted by farmers; this involves allowing farmland to lie fallow after initial cultivation for a certain period of time to enable it to regain soil nutrients and increase productivity. This, however, is becoming increasingly difficult for farmers as the available cultivatable land is shrinking due to increasing pollution. Furthermore, due to increasing soil rigidity associated with gas flares, farmers regularly have to water their crops to keep them hydrated. Similarly, in fresh water communities such as Ogboinbiri and Polaku, the riverbanks have been increasingly utilized as planting areas due to the rigidity of designated farmlands within the communities. The use of organic waste as a fertilizer on crops is also becoming popular among farmers; some farmers use burned ashes as a fertilizer to cultivate plantain and banana suckers. On the other hand, farmers who can afford synthetic fertilizers and pesticides apply them to improve productivity and ensure pest control.

An emerging practice predominant in Polaku community is the adoption of non-indigenous techniques and the use of foreign labour power to increase crop productivity. The findings revealed that, in Polaku, locals employ migrant farmers from Anambra State (Eastern Nigeria) who have a unique technique for cultivating yams known as ‘yam circumcision’ to increase their farming yields. This process was described by farmers in Polaku during the FGD session:

The Namu people from Anambra now lease our land on a yearly basis and farm for us … They cultivate a unique species of yam which they circumcise by harvesting the yams prematurely and then separating and replanting the tubers, thereby ensuring bigger yields.Footnote ⁹

Furthermore, the study revealed that, aside from the issues of oil pollution, coastal communities are susceptible to flooding and erosion. As a flood mitigation strategy, Polaku and Ogboinbiri farmers rely on their indigenous knowledge of flood seasons to cultivate and harvest early. These farmers also alternate between farming and fishing activities depending on the annual flood seasons. During high tide, farmlands become inundated and are used as fishing grounds; conversely, after the flood season, these farmlands, which have become fertile due to flood deposits, are prepared for cultivation.

On-fishing adaptation strategies

Fishing households in Kokodiagbene, Bodo, Polaku and Bille communities have also altered their fishing practices and in some cases have developed new fishing systems in response to oil and gas pollution.

Figure 6. Analytical Framework 3: On-fishing adaptation strategies.

Source: NVivo output based on interviews and FGDs.

Figure 6 shows that most fishermen in the area now rely on more resilient fish species. The findings from the study indicate that, according to respondents, species such as tilapia (Tilapia guineensis), catfish (Siluriformes), mudskippers (Periophthalmus papilio), periwinkle (Tympanotonus fuscatus), barracuda (Sphyraenidae sphyraenidae) and oysters (Pteriomorphia) are severely impacted by oil spills, while species such as crabs (Brachyura), crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), shrimps (Penaeus notialis) and mullet (Mugil cephalus) are more resilient. This has increasingly pushed fishermen to rely on and specialize in these resilient species to support their livelihoods. Describing this phenomenon, a fisherman in Bille community noted:

Mullet is resilient to oil spillage, that is why I specialize in it. Also, crayfish (locally called asan) don’t die in oil; it appears it feeds on oil. Even the crabs and afari fish, they also survive in oil pollution.Footnote ¹⁰

Deep-sea fishing is a prominent adaptation strategy, particularly in brackish river communities who depend solely on fishing and do not have the luxury of making farming an alternative livelihood activity. For instance, fishermen from Bille community go deep-sea fishing along the New Calabar River, while those in Bodo fish in the Bonny River and fishermen in Kokodiagbene head to Escravos and Oporoza rivers. Despite its popularity, deep-sea fishing is reported to be a risky venture among fishermen; they venture into rough waters with wooden paddle canoes and handmade fishing nets that are not suitable for such expeditions. This exposes fishermen to natural hazards such as sea turbulence and security risks such as attacks by sea pirates. A fisherman in Kokodiagbene community described his experience with deep-sea fishing:

I wish we had a fishing trawler in this community; going to the sea to fish is not an easy task. I paddle fourteen hours daily from Kokodiagbene to Escravos River to fish.Footnote ¹¹

Engaging in deep-sea fishing implies that fishermen have to spend more time at sea than usual. Navigating these challenges, fishermen rely on indigenous environmental knowledge of seasons, tides and weather conditions to forecast the location of specific species of fish and the best time for fishing expeditions. For instance, in Bodo community, fishermen reported that they have two weeks of good tide and then of bad tide, so they usually fish during the good tide. Similarly, in Bille community, most fishermen reported that they prefer fishing when the tide is high because the rising water volume usually helps to wash away the oil from the river and reduce it to a manageable level, which enables fishing activities to take place. Furthermore, when fishermen discover the locations of specific fish species that are of interest, they share information among themselves on the conditions of the rivers and the location of fish. The adoption of mobile phones by fishermen has made information sharing easier, cheaper and more efficient.

Similarly, women, who mostly rely on periwinkle picking and mangrove forest harvesting, have to travel deep into the mangrove forests to harvest seafood. Harvesting seafood along the community rivers and creeks is no longer possible due to oil spill contamination. In situations when there is little or no harvest, they resort to harvesting mangrove trees, which are then sold in local markets as fuel firewood. Describing their experiences, women in the FGD held in Bille had this to say:

Women usually go to the mangrove to pick periwinkles, oysters and seafood but they go farther now or fetch polluted mangrove trees for firewood.Footnote ¹²

Another unique dimension of the adaptation processes of fishermen is the change in the social organization of fishing. Traditionally, fishing is a collective activity involving adult members of a household or a group of households going on fishing expeditions, after which the proceeds are shared among the participants. This has changed in recent years with worsening levels of oil pollution: for instance, it was reported in Bodo community that fishing has increasingly moved away from being a collective activity to an individualized one. Fishermen who attended the FGD in Bodo expressed this concern:

In those days, fishing was a group activity; fishermen went for fishing expeditions for weeks and shared the spoils. Nowadays fishing is an individualized activity since it is now less lucrative.Footnote ¹³

Beyond the economic and livelihood losses this will portend for households, this change has implications for social integration and bonding among families and community members, while also reducing the transfer of indigenous fishing knowledge and technology to younger members of households and the community at large.

In addition to the strategies described above, as a way of mitigating increasingly uncertain fishing yields, fishermen have adopted several types of fishing techniques. This includes moving away from specialized fishing to spontaneous or diversified fishing practices and involves switching fishing techniques and utilizing multiple types of fishing gear to harvest whatever species of fish are available at a given point in time. Also, the study revealed that most fishermen have diversified away from the popular ‘throw-net’ technique to the ‘round-net’ technique, which guarantees them better yields. Some fishermen have also resorted to reducing the sizes of their fishing nets, enabling them to catch fishes of all sizes, including fingerlings and smaller fish species. While this practice increases fishing yields, it is unsustainable; by harvesting fingerlings, it impedes regeneration of fish stocks in the rivers and creeks. Fishermen also noted that regular contact with crude oil destroys their fishing nets, leaving them stained black and making it difficult for them to catch fish. To mitigate this, they usually wash off crude oil stains using kerosene (paraffin); this makes the nets clean and fit for use and saves them the cost of replacements. However, it also reintroduces toxic contaminants to the water bodies and poisons fishes and other marine life, thereby reinforcing the hydrocarbon pollution they are responding to in the first place.

Interestingly, while these adaptation practices have aided fishermen to navigate polluted rivers, some have abandoned fishing entirely and have resorted to aquaculture, particularly fish farming in earthen ponds. This fishing pattern has its own challenges, particularly as ponds can be inundated by flood waters, leading to a loss of fish stocks. As a mitigation strategy to cushion the impact of flooding of the fishponds, most fish farmers fence their ponds with mosquito nets to protect the fish stocks from overflowing out of the ponds.

Despite the reliance on these on-farm and on-fishing adaptation strategies, the findings reveal that these ad hoc and spontaneous strategies have only palliative effects and are unable to mitigate the long-term environmental effects of oil and gas extraction in the region. This situation has contributed to the emergence of crude oil theft and artisanal refining as alternative livelihoods, suggesting a gradual shift from farming and fishing to crude oil-based livelihood activities, as the next section shows.

Artisanal crude oil or ‘kpo-fire’ refining: the livelihood dysfunction trap

Artisanal crude oil refining, locally known as ‘kpo-fire’, was reported to be the most prominent adaptation strategy to oil and gas pollution and alternative livelihood activity in the study area. Artisanal refining refers to the illegal refining of crude oil in makeshift oil refineries in the creeks and communities in the Niger Delta. Ugor (Reference Ugor2013), who described this phenomenon as an underground oil economy, noted that it is a spontaneous survival strategy, particularly for youths, to deal with harsh socio-economic conditions arising from environmental degradation in the region. This situation, which Adunbi (Reference Adunbi2020) describes as the ‘captive creeks of oil’, reflects artisanal refining’s status as a means of ‘localized accumulation’ (Ugor Reference Ugor2013) of oil wealth – wealth that multinational oil companies and the Nigerian government have denied the local population. The artisanal refining of crude oil is rooted in the adoption of the age-old technology for distilling local gin known as Kai-Kai from palm wine. Kpo-fire involves the cooking of stolen crude oil in large pots to distil petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene. Describing the situation, participants of the FGD in Bille community, where artisanal refining was rife at the time of the study, had this to say:

The study revealed that artisanal refining is a popular livelihood activity among community members, displacing fishing. Due to the risks involved in stealing and refining crude oil, young men usually operate the refining camps. Most fishing settlements, known locally as ‘Borikiri’, were reported to have been converted to refining camps. Finished products are moved to nearby villages and towns; mainly women are engaged in distributing and retailing the refined products. For instance, Figure 7 depicts the rapid livelihood changes along the Bille waterways; the woman in the photograph is transporting illegally refined petroleum products rather than fish.

Figure 7. Woman transporting illegally refined petrol in a canoe on the polluted Bille Creek.

Despite its popularity, kpo-fire comes with a severe cost: the crude nature of the refining technology leads to severe environmental damage (Obenade and Amangabara Reference Obenade and Amangabara2014). Furthermore, the practice of artisanal refining has been associated with poor air quality and the emergence of soot pollution, which poses significant health risks to the Niger Delta people (Jack and Zibima Reference Jack and Zibima2020). The study respondents, while agreeing that artisanal refining has increasingly become a livelihood strategy, also decried the negative environmental externalities it produces:

Despite growing awareness of the negative environmental consequences of kpo-fire, community members approved of it, describing the practice as the means of surviving decades of pollution and benefiting from the oil wealth in their region. This suggests that economic considerations often supersede environmental considerations when people, especially the poor, make livelihood decisions (Foster and Clark Reference Foster and Clark2020). Based on the above, and drawing from Schipper’s (Reference Schipper2020) conception of maladaptation, this study argues that artisanal refining is maladaptive by recycling vulnerabilities and externalities. First, artisanal refining engenders ‘rebounding vulnerability’ as it reproduces vulnerability by causing more pollution and destroying the ecosystem’s ability to support livelihoods. Furthermore, there are health risks associated with refining crude oil, and sudden explosions increase susceptibility to burning and sudden death. While explosions and deaths related to kpo-fire are common in the Niger Delta, most of these isolated incidents remain uninvestigated and unreported by the Nigerian media, government and oil companies. However, an explosion that occurred on 22 April 2022 in Abacheke, a border community between Rivers and Imo states of the Niger Delta, attracted global media attention (Owolabi Reference Owolabi2022). This was the worst incident recorded; it left over 100 people dead and signalled an escalation of the trend. Second, artisanal refining engenders ‘shifting vulnerability’ by means of increasing the livelihood burdens of non-artisanal refiners in the communities, who find it more difficult to sustain fishing and farming livelihoods due to artisanal refining. The study revealed that this has increasingly resulted in the abandonment of fishing livelihoods by people who have fewer alternatives and who then move into artisanal refining. It was observed during the fieldwork that several ‘Borikiri’ fishing settlements have been transformed into kpo-fire camps, suggesting the gradual displacement of fishing activities by artisanal refineries. Lastly, artisanal refining engenders ‘negative externalities’ as it compounds the environmental crisis in the region, resulting in soot pollution – a menace that undermines the health and well-being of millions in the region (Jack and Zibima Reference Jack and Zibima2020) – while also fuelling new forms of conflict between security forces and non-state actors, including gangs and local vigilante groups.

The emergence of artisanal refining as a livelihood strategy has increasingly become a huge concern for the Niger Delta since the scale of refining is massive – thousands of refining camps are operational across the region. The environmental impacts of artisanal refining, which Adunbi (Reference Adunbi2022) described as the social death of the Niger Delta environment, suggest that the practice is maladaptive. It reproduces pollution and worsens existing vulnerabilities, leading to what I refer to as a ‘livelihood dysfunction trap’. I use this term to refer to a situation where artisanal refining creates a vicious circle of pollution and re-pollution, undermining environmental integrity and sustainable livelihoods for communities now and in the future.

Figure 8. The social structure of adaptive and maladaptive responses to environmental pollution in the Niger Delta.

Figure 8 illustrates the framework for adaptive and maladaptive responses of host community members to environmental degradation in the region. It divides the social organization of communities into those who initially engage in traditional livelihoods such as fishing and farming and those who are engaged in non-farming and non-fishing livelihood activities. The adaptive domain that is at the heart of the diagram indicates an area where livelihood shifts occur in the form of either adaptive or maladaptive responses to the impact of environmental pollution. For those involved in traditional on-farm and on-fishing activities, these livelihood responses happen in a twofold process. First, there are those who remain within their traditional livelihood (on-farm or on-fishing) activities, while altering conventional techniques or methods to adapt to the harsh realities resulting from environmental pollution. Second, some farmers and fishermen follow a maladaptive trajectory and drift into illicit activities such as artisanal oil theft and kpo-fire. At the other end of the diagram is a scenario where those who were neither farmers nor fishermen (mostly the unemployed, both graduates and non-graduates), motivated by long years of environmental degradation and fraught economic conditions, transition easily into the maladaptive domain of artisanal oil theft and refining. This latter category clearly captures the social and economic pressures driving the illicit economic space in the region.

The next section provides insights into the factors that create conditions that make it difficult for households to pursue sustainable livelihood alternatives, thereby engendering maladaptive outcomes.

The capacity to adapt: constraints to sustainable adaptation practices

The ability of individual households and communities to successfully adapt to environmental stress is what is referred to as adaptive capacity. Nelson et al. (Reference Nelson, Adger and Brown2007) define adaptive capacity as the precondition necessary for a system to be able to adapt to disturbances, represented by the set of available resources and the ability of a system to respond to changes, including the capacity to design and implement effective adaptation strategies. Adaptive capacity is a function of resources or assets inherent in and accessible to a given system. Several measures have been utilized to evaluate adaptive capacity, including livelihood diversification (Ellis and Allison Reference Ellis and Allison2004), levels of social capital (Adger Reference Adger2003) and access to resources (Scoones Reference Scoones1998). This article, however, has classified these resources as natural, physical, human, financial or social capital, drawing from the sustainable livelihood framework (DfID 1999). The sustainable livelihood approach was adopted to measure the adaptive capacity of households in this study given its focus on livelihoods. According to Ellis and Allison (Reference Ellis and Allison2004), the sustainable livelihood approach is holistic and people-centred, as it provides an integrated perspective of people’s livelihoods within evolving social, economic, environmental, political and institutional contexts.

Table 1. Assessment of household adaptive capacity in the study communities.

Source: Based on summaries of interviews and FGDs.

Table 1 presents the determinants of the adaptive capacity of households in the study communities, based on the availability and accessibility of the five forms of livelihood capital associated with the sustainable livelihood framework. The data indicates the abundance of social capital as a vital resource for adaptation amidst deficits in other resource categories. Existing studies have established the association between adaptive capacity and social capital – that is, relationships built on trust, networks and reciprocity (Cabell and Oelofse Reference Cabell and Oelofse2012). With regard to the specific study communities, Jack and Eke (Reference Jack and Eke2018) had earlier reported that households rely strongly on local institutions such as age grade associations, church groups, thrift societies and informal networks, including family, friends and neighbours, for livelihood resources such as finance, training, and opportunities for alternative livelihood support systems.

However, the presence of a strong social capital base does not in itself guarantee sustainable and adaptive outcomes in the absence of other resources. The study showed that households have limited access to education, which in turn reduces social learning for new livelihood skills, and low financial capital. In addition, poor aspects of physical capital – household livelihood assets and infrastructural deficits in communities, for instance – combine to constrain household adaptive capacity. The results are that households are unable to meet their livelihood aspirations, improve their income levels or reduce their vulnerabilities to oil pollution. This provides the necessary incentives for some to adopt unsustainable alternatives such as artisanal refining, which exacerbates pollution and reinforces vulnerabilities.