COASTAL CHALLENGES AND THE CHALLENGES OF COASTAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Ifeyinwa Christabel Okeke

Conek International Limited, Lagos, (NG)

Introduction
The Nigerian coastal region is endowed with a lot of resources. However, the environmental problems in the Nigerian coastal region are becoming serious issues of concern, which calls for coastal education for all. The Nigerian coast is characterized by a low-lying topography with average height of not more than 3.5m above sea level in most areas. The country's coastal boundary with the Atlantic Ocean is about 835km. The coastal zone is classified into four broad regions due to morphological, vegetational and beach type differences. The regions are the barrier lagoon coast, the Transgressive mud coast, the Niger delta (most popular) and the strand coast.

The Nigerian Coastal Zone
The coastal zone of Nigeria could be described based on geomorphology, vegetation, natural resources and socio-economic activities. Geomorphologically, the barrier-lagoon coast extends eastward about 250km from the Nigerian-Benin border to Ajuno village, consisting of narrow beach ridges aligned parallel with the coast and backed up by the Badagry, Lagos, and Lekki lagoons with beach sediments of medium to coarse grained sand and moderately well sorted. (Ibe and Awosika, 1986).

The transgressive mud coast extends about 75km east of the barrier lagoon terminating at Benin river estuary in northwestern part of the Niger delta. This region is low lying and muddy in nature; however, it is backed by fresh water swamps with medium, coarse and poor sorted silt sediments.

The Niger delta extends about 450km eastwards from Benin river estuary terminates at the mouth of Imo River. It covers an area about 70,000km2 consisting of barrier islands, estuaries, mangroves, creek and fresh water swamps. Finally, the strand coast extends 85km east of the Niger delta from Imo River to Cross River estuary at the Nigeria-Cameroun border. The strand coast is characterized by flat beaches backed up by mangrove swamps.

Palms and coconut trees dominate the coastal zone vegetation, especially between Badagry beach and some kilometers east of Lagos. The mangrove also occupies an extensive zone with red soils and salt water. The Nigerian coastal zone is rich in natural resources. For example the timber from forest, oysters, shellfish, crabs from the mangroves, aqua cultural production especially fish of different species and minerals (oil and gas), sand, gravel and limestone are also solid minerals of the coastal zone. Majority of Nigeria's economic activities are located along the coastal cities of Lagos, Warri, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Bonny with activities like agriculture, fishing, mining, manufacturing of textiles, food, wood, pulp and paper production dominating.

Nigeria's coastal zone is being challenged and threatened by a lot of environmental problems such as soil and coastal erosion, pollution, population pressure, hypoxic waters and "dead zone", heated (thermal) waters, habitat loss, coastal hazards, marine/beach debris, oil spills, global climate change, over fishing, loss of biological diversity, invasion of non indigenous/nuisance faunal species (water hyacinth), flooding etc. Soil and coastal erosion adversely affects 80% of Nigerian lands. The ever turbulent Lagos bar beach at Ahmadu Bello way Victoria Island and the seaward ends of the Niger delta at Okirika in Rivers State are great coastal challenges to Nigeria. The annual menace of flooding of Victoria Island beach, which is often compounded by lack of drainage channels to drain excess water, has cost massive loss of land, contamination of coastal water resources, decimation of agricultural and recreational areas, loss of settlements, major roads like Ahmadu Bello Way, harbor and navigational structures. This has also dislodged oil producing and export handling facilities, marine ecological destruction as well as silting and sedimentation of creeks, thus producing a fragile environment at the beach and a threat to recreation. These coastal environmental problems are caused by natural as well as human factors. Tackling such problems requires intensive research, training and coastal education. In particular, education is essential to change the destructive relationships between human beings and the rest of nature (Abrams Isabel, 1992).

Coastal Problems in Nigeria
Nigeria's coastline is being threatened by the following problems:

1. Erosion
-Coastal
-Riverbank

2. Flooding
-Sea level rise
-Land degradation
-Resource degradation
-Sand mining

3. Fisheries
-Stock depletion
-Habitat degradation

4. Forestry
-Deforestation
-Mangrove degradation
-Biodiversity loss
-Water hyacinth

5. Environmental pollution
-Toxic substance
-Sewage
-Water contamination
-Oil spills
-Solid waste
-Air pollution

Coastal erosion could be at the riverbank or along the coast. It has consumed a large portion of the valuable land from Lagos in the west to Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom to Cross-river state in the southeast. The forces of nature, especially the constantly pounding Atlantic wave generated by strong southwesterly winds, are eroding the beaches. Sites of severe coastal erosion include the Bar beach at Victoria Island in Lagos and the seawards end of the Niger Delta at Okirika in Rivers state. The tidally induced riverbank erosion is serious at Ibeno, Opobo and James town in AkwaIbom state.

Nigerian petroleum industry located in the Niger Delta has added to the problems of these coastlands. Gas flares have burnt majority of the mangroves and polluted settlements, plants, and animals. Similarly, oil spillages devastate land, water and vegetation. More so, the canals used by Oil companies to aid field transportation in Niger Delta have caused the intrusion of salt water into the fresh swamps, hence decimating vegetation. The low elevation over extensive areas of the coast has made it prone to sea level rise coupled with widespread erosion and flooding. Another biological hazard facing the coastal zones is the uneconomic exotic but largely naturalized Nipa palm (Nipa Fructicans) fast replacing the native mangroves especially along the Andoni and Bonny Rivers State (NEST, 1991).

The Need for Coastal Environmental Education
Education is a process of developing a group or an individual, towards the acquisition of specific values, attitudes, skills and knowledge. Education involves creating awareness about a particular issue which one wants a group of people to gain from time to time. It is a lifelong process. Our lives impact the coast, no matter where we live and the best way to protect these coasts is to learn about them. Hence education is a strategic tool for coastal zone management. Coastal education is very important in tackling coastal problems. Coastal education involves the integration of both formal and informal education as well as research based approach to monitor and solve coastal related problems.

Formal education takes place within the school. Coastal education should be taught in schools as to help children know their environment and act in a sensible way to sustain the coasts. This could be done through the school curriculum for instance general science, debates, quiz and essay competitions, lectures, symposia, workshops and research. Informal education takes place outside the classroom (Obanya, 1987); it is undertaken outside the formal setting. Peer groups, meetings, folklores and communication gadgets like radios, televisions, drama, and mass media like magazines, newspapers and the worldwide web are of great importance in this respect.

The urgent need for coastal education should therefore start from the educated and professional citizens especially the coastal engineers, scientists, planners, government functionaries down to the general public. There is need to re-educate the masses, even the educated people. Sea grants should also be given to scientists, engineers, managers, teachers and other citizens so as to study coastal challenges as well as to provide public information on coastal and marine issues.

Towards a Sound Coastal Environmental Education
In order to accomplish effective education of the citizenry on coastal zone management, all the stakeholders must be identified and involved, and both formal and informal approaches would need to be adopted. On therefore agrees with Bhushan et al (1990) that the traditional concept of education as largely limited to the school based process has to be abandoned. Local coastal dwellers and their traditional knowledge system should form part of any coastal educational programme. More specifically, to promote a sound coastal education, the following points should be considered:
Awareness: Coastal education should aim at sensitizing the public by exposing them to the total coastal environment and its problems. It helps them to master the environment as to preserve it against degradation. If people are not aware of the hazards in the coastal environment they cannot tackle such hazards. Web based learning approaches helps create awareness to both coastal zone managers and non experts.
Knowledge: Adequate knowledge and experience of the coastal areas is very important especially in the developing nations. Knowledge helps to reduce and solve some coastal problems by proffering solutions at local, national, regional and international levels.
Attitude: The society's attitude towards the coastal environment should be a positive one since the coastal environment is of great economic importance to the people. Protection and improvement should be the focus of the society to their coastal environment. To this end therefore, any coastal educational programmed should be aimed at achieving positive attitudinal change among the users of coastal resources.
Skill acquisition: Coastal education should be geared towards helping people acquire the necessary skill to understand and handle coastal environmental problems by first identifying the problem, then tackling it to find a lasting solution.
Participation: Coastal education should be a continuous process from pre-school age to school and even out of school situation. It provides learners the opportunity to acquire more knowledge and awareness about the environment, the problems, and active participation to help solve it. In other words, coastal education should be viewed beyond the cognitive study of man and his interrelationship with the coastal environment. It should be inculcated in school curricula and every body should be involved.
Integrated approach: An integrated coastal resource management approach with the objective of promoting sustainable utilization of coastal resources as well as restoring and maintaining the integrity of coastal ecosystems, needs to be adopted to address a wide range of social and environmental issues and move coastal zone towards sustainable development.
Policy: Sound policies and decision making with information systems especially the geographic information system (GIS) needs to be adopted for information collection, analysis, management, and dissemination of technical data relevant to the coast such as:
(i) Spatial information particularly lands and forest survey.
(ii) Flood and erosion risk assessment.
(iii) Biological inventories
(iv) Socio-economic state of the coastal zones.
(v) Risk assessment.
Planning: Closer attention should be focused on detailed research, proactive environmental planning, impact assessment and management. For instance preparing master plans for the control of land, coastal and marine based activities to minimize pollution and protect coastal and marine resources. The value of the coast should be emphasized, ways of facilitating sustainable coastal development, promotion of coordinated and integrated coastal management as well as the style of management should all be adequately considered.

Conclusion
Coastal education has a great role to play as regards managing coastal environmental problems. It should take roots in the minds of all Nigerians. One major disturbing factor of coastal environmental problems is the fact that the problems originated from the actions and inactions of highly educated professionals and individuals. For instance, the mishandling of drainage, deforestation along the highways, damning a river without proper watershed management, oil pollution and the misconception of the Nipa palm which neither controls erosion nor is of any economic importance. We need to ask ourselves the extent some projects will go in perturbing the natural system.

Ironically, one of the challenges of coastal education in Nigeria is that even the educated Nigerians including engineers, planners, decision makers and government functionaries need coastal education as much as the common people.

References