Page:Niger Delta Ecosystems- the ERA Handbook, 1998.djvu/146

The Resources of the Niger Delta: Agriculture the end of the century. This lasted until U.A.C. closed in 1960 when production stopped immediately, for lack of a market, and fishing became the primary occupation once more.

The high demand for oil palm products up to 1960 was probably the greatest incentive that the Akassa people had ever had for changing their environment, but this was mitigated by the fact that the palm was growing naturally and because Akassa is not suitable for large-scale plantation agriculture. The present pattern of land-use is less intensive, now that people have returned to fishing, than it was in the 1950s.

As soon as viable society appeared, paths developed and useful canoe and building timber was removed. Settlements of convenience were established on the sand-ridges, and abandoned (and established again) leaving behind them the plants that humans find useful and which they favour.

Contact with European traders would have brought in exotic seeds from South America, Southeast Asia and India, such as the mango and the breadfruit. As trade developed more timber trees would have been removed to sell for planks, and later, when iron (and then steel) saws became available the Akassa people would have produced the planks themselves. Casuarinas probably began to appear in the early part of the 20th century (they are native to the South Pacific).

The growth of the palm-oil trade would have seen oil palms beginning to dominate the forest more and more as they were either planted or, more likely, merely favoured. The removal of the taller trees for timber would have further favoured the natural spread of palm trees that are shaded out in the high forest. (This process continues despite the loss of the palm oil market in 1960, because the taller trees continue to be removed.) A similar process is apparent in the wetter parts of the swamps where raffia palms are protected and encouraged for palm-wine, much of which is distilled into gin ('kai-kai'). This tendency of the palm trees to dominate the forest will have favoured animals that are attracted to palm trees, such as certain tree snakes, palm-nut civets, rats, the palm-nut vulture and harrier hawks.

The exploitation of the ecosystem (which included limited hunting, and collection of periwinkles, oysters and crabs from the mangroves) in the interior will have intensified as the population increased. First with the decline of the slave trade and much later with the introduction of modern health services, although settlement has largely remained confined to the estuaries.

The result of the activities of viable society on Akassa has been to create what can best be described as a cultured forest. That is highly depleted from the forester's point of view but not technically secondary forest since it has never been entirely cleared for farming; reduced somewhat in its biodiversity, but nonetheless remaining a viable ecosystem, able to withstand such shocks as the Texaco oil spill in 1980. Today we see coconut palms in the littoral and strand sub-ecozones, far fewer big trees (and thus more undergrowth, although foot paths would have made the going easier), many more palms, (the palm swamps that would have been more open before 1960 are again hard to get through) and on the sand ridges, a predominance in places of exotic economic trees such as bread-fruit and mango. On the wider sections of the sand ridges (on Brass) we see pass unimpressive cassava farms and sandy scrub where farming has been tried and abandoned. In the mangroves we notice the stilt roots on the creek sides cut back to facilitate canoes and from harvesting oysters; also we see small canals cutting off some of the bends in the rivers.

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