Nigeria’s Niger Delta and the Challenges of Environmental Stewardship: The Need for Cautious Eco-aesthetics.

Abstract

The Niger Delta region has been embroiled in acts that are under gird by environmental infraction of great magnitude.These acts point to the absence of environmental stewardship and a concern for eco-ethics. Multi-national oil companies are responsible for these acts. The absence of care from these oil companies for the environment and the people has its own twist. In this regard the indigenes have fallen on erstwhile technologies of brewing local gin for refining oil in conditions that further compromise of the environment. In this paper, documentary photographs by artists on these conditions are relied upon to foster eco-aesthetics. A focus on eco-aesthetics as this paper is defined is an approach to rely on art and its literacy to ameliorate the consequences of abject environmental stewardship.

Key words Aesthetic education, Artists, Environment, Eco- aesthetics, Eco-ethics, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Niger Delta, Nigeria, Poets