World Wetlands Map
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WWF is eager to demonstrate the benefits to both food security and biodiversity conservation from maintaining the characteristics of a natural river and floodplain through small-scale polyculture rather than through the highly water-consumptive, polluting and dam-dependent strategies of irrigated agriculture. Following an investigation last June and July, WWF has identified a range of promising partners and projects that may be interwoven to support a comprehensive strategy for the aquatic biodiversity of the River Niger named the Living Niger River Initiative.

The aim is to create a basis for the sustainable use of natural resources, to support biodiversity conservation and improve people's living standards. The initiative will recognize and consider links between the five global-200 ecoregions that are important to the River Niger - namely the Guinean forests, Upper Guinea Rivers and Streams, the Sud-Sahalian flooded grasslands of the Niger Inner Delta in Mali, the Gulf of Guinea mangrove forests and the Niger delta in Nigeria. The initiative hopes to develop a cooperative relationship with the Niger Dams Authority and the Nigerian Niger Basin Development Authority but, at the same time, to keep a clear focus on biodiversity and threats upstream of Nigeria.

Failures Of Nigeria's Kainji Dam

The arguments in support of the construction of the Kainji dam were electrical-power generation for all of Nigeria with enough over for export to the Niger Republic, better water transport beyond Lokoja, improved fisheries including a fish-canning industry, access to adequate water for irrigated agriculture and the supply of potable water to the resettlement villages. Potable water is supplied sporadically to the housing estate of the Kainji dam authorities. In the first 10 years of Lake Kainji's existence, there was a fishing boom but it was short-lived because the boom attracted migrant fishermen from other parts of Nigeria and by 1979 there was evidence of overfishing in the lake. Fish stocks crashed, and the migrant fishermen left. The fish-canning industry was not built. For irrigated agriculture, the lake did supply adequate water but only to irrigate marginal upland soils. Moreover, the people could not afford the expensive irrigation equipment needed in these new conditions. Control of water flow at the dam did not permit water transport at all, not to mention getting to Lokoja. The aim of supplying electricity, on the other hand, has not been realized. The Kainji dam was designed to turn 12 electricity-generating turbines. When the dam was closed in 1968, it was clear that at peak performance it would barely turn eight turbines. At present it works only four. Meanwhile, the fertile flood plains of the Niger with their age-old tested livelihood system were lost. The sugarcane farms downstream at Basita (which depended on the natural flooding of the Niger) were devastated. The Basita Sugar Industry sought raw materials elsewhere as sugarcane farmers sought new livelihoods. The traditional dry-season grazing ground of the nomadic Fulani cattle was lost, causing conflicts between the nomads and resident farmers. People's health suffered because of the recurrent and hitherto infrequent water-borne diseases. The coastal Niger delta was not spared. Because of unpredictable flood patterns (which now depend on erratic off-season releases from the dam), crops and property are regularly lost. To address these problems, the Nigerian Government set up the Kainji Lake Research Institute (now The National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research) to investigate and offer solutions to the socio-economic, health, fishery and wildlife management problems associated with the creation of Lake Kainji, but in 1983 another dam was built downstream of Kainji at Jebba compounding the problems.

These and other dams and barrages in Niger Republic and in Mali raised the need for a coordinated approach to the development of the River Niger system. Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria therefore formed the Niger River Commission. The commission is more or less moribund, and uncoordinated development of the Niger system still continues. To the power generation authorities, water storage is vital for livelihood. Their operations have led to significant changes in the livelihood systems of the people, which have been translated into increased pressure on resources and the resultant deforestation, erosion, situation of the river and loss of biodiversity.