Nature Writing in Environmental Conservation of Urhoboland in the Niger Delta
Urhoboland like other areas in Nigeria's Niger Delta has suffered from environmental pollution and degradation. This degradation is caused essentially by oil exploration and oil pollution activities. Outside oil companies' activities, there are also factors like careless dumping of solid and domestic waste, deforestation, herdsmen's vandalism of farmlands, sacrifices of African traditional worshippers thrown into the rivers, abandoned political and religious billboards and posters that litter the land, and so forth. No one factor is enough to explain what causes environmental degradation in Urhoboland, rather it comes from multiple factors as listed above. This paper argues that there is a need to foster environmental conservation in Urhoboland through nature writing. Nature writing is generally understood as non-fictional or fictional written discourses with the environment or natural realities as the main subject. Nature writing helps to promote environmental awareness and the need for people to act responsibly towards the environment. The paper uses critical analytic and hermeneutic methods to show that the state of environmental conservation in Urhoboland is deplorable and that there are few nature writings on Urhoboland. It argues for more nature writings on the environment of Urhoboland. Through hermeneutics, the key concepts in the paper are deciphered and interpreted. The paper concludes that if there are many more nature writings on Urhoboland, they will help to conserve Urhoboland environmentally
Keywords: conservation, delta, environmental, nature, niger, urhoboland, writing