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Human Ecosystems: Introduction acute shortage of timber and fuel, and where the forest is held as a common resource: no man or woman is going to consider conserving the forest because if s/he does not exploit it to his own maximum ability then someone else will, and so down to the last tree until there are no trees left which is the tragedy. The situation is exacerbated because poor people (made poorer by environmental degradation) cannot afford to think about conserving resources: present needs take precedence.

16.3.4 THE STAGE ONE IMPACT OF MODERN PEOPLE ON THE ENVIRONMENT

The environmental impact of modern people on the Southeast of Nigeria can be best understood in two stages.

The first stage occurred before the recent accelerated growth in human population. In this stage the traditional activities of shifting agriculture and hunting, fishing and exploitation of forest products were distorted by contact with the industrialising European economy which introduced a strong market impact in all West African society creating an infinite demand for some of its products.

The market impact was at first dominated by the slave trade. This is an important factor, because by undermining the human relationship between Europeans and Africans it led to the European underestimation of the value and strength of African culture, and thus prepared it for its subsequent destruction by missionary activity and imperialism. Later (when the Americas were satiated with slaves who were reproducing to satisfy the market), trade was dominated by palm-oil (essential for lubricating the machines of Europe and for providing candles, soap and margarine for its exploding population) and other natural resources such as timber. So important was palm-oil that the area of production, between the Benin and Cross Rivers became known as the Oil Rivers.

It was during this period that the great trading cultures of the Niger Delta and elsewhere developed, so that the names of Bonny, Brass and Calabar became world famous. During this period the trade was controlled by Africans, but this control did last long as the various industrialising European powers scrambled for control of the rich West African Coast. The British "won" the Niger coast and the story of King Jaja of Opobo is a nice example of the doomed indigenous attempts to maintain control of trade.

British imperialism formalised British control over the Oil Rivers, good access to the region being facilitated by the rivers themselves. From the beginning, the area was organised for economic exploitation: first, in 1885, as the Oil Rivers Protectorate, and then as the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1893, which extended from the Lagos Colony to the Rio Del Rey river, until it was incorporated into the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria on the 1st January 1900. As a result, for example, the production of local gin was prohibited to free the market for imports of British gin; forests were excised from local control and turned into forest reserves; cash crops such as rubber and cocoa were introduced to serve the European market; and finally plantations were established for oil palm and rubber. These latter three activities were continued and, to some extent, intensified after independence, so inextricably had the Southern Nigerian economy become tied to Europe.

This stage one impact of modern people on the environment of what is now South-east Nigeria had six effects as follows.

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 * The stimulation, by economic activity, of population growth and urban development, which increased the demand for food.