As Western African economies have diversified and concentrated on exports, sources of industrial pollution have developed in the coastal zone. The main sources are breweries, textile industries, tanneries, aluminium smelting, petroleum processing, and edible oil manufacturing. At present, effluents are often discharged untreated into rivers, lagoons and the coastal waters of the Gulf of Guinea, and this is likely to increase with rising economic pressures to expand industrial operations (Akpabli 2000). The Korle Lagoon, a large coastal wetland in Accra (Ghana), has been severely degraded by pollution from industrial and domestic sources (WRA 1997). Agricultural pollution is widespread, with chemical residues, fertilizers and soil being washed from the surrounding cultivated areas, and causing eutrophication in coastal wetlands and estuaries.
Pollution of such environments reduces their potential to support wildlife and commercial fisheries. Polluted waters are also a risk to human health, through direct contact or contamination of drinking water sources. Pollution by sewage creates a risk of typhoid, paratyphoid, and hepatitis infections, through direct contact and consumption of contaminated seafood. Microbial and bacteriological contamination are cause for concern in the Bay of Hann, near Dakar (Senegal), in Ebrie Lagoon (Abidjan), and in Lagos Lagoon (Nigeria) (UNEP 1984).
Offshore mining and oil drilling activities are major sources of oil pollution, mainly because of leaking pipes, accidents, ballast water discharges, and production-water discharges. Drilling also involves the use of heavy metals such as vanadium and nickel, and contamination of seawater with these metals is known to affect plants and animals. Oil pollution damages coastal resources and habitats, as well as fisheries, reducing catches and incomes.
The Gulf of Guinea Large Marine Ecosystem Programme is a jointly funded, regional cooperative programme for improving environmental quality and productivity in the Gulf of Guinea (see Box 2c.5). Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo from Western Africa and Cameroon in Central Africa, have participated in the programme which has established a framework for sub-regional cooperation and national level, integrated coastal management plans. It also facilitated the adoption of the Accra Declaration (Declaration for Environmentally Sustainable Development of the Large Marine Ecosystem of the Gulf of Guinea), in 1998. The Declaration, aims at institutionalizing a new ecosystem-wide strategy for joint actions in environmental and natural resource assessment and management in the Gulf of Guinea. Ministers of participating countries have also called for the initiation of a second phase of the project with participation expanded to involve 10 other countries from Senegal to Angola. The Programme received recognition by other coastal African nations during the Pan-African Conference on Sustainable Integrated Coastal Management (PACSICOM) (Mozambique, 1998) and by the Advisory Committee on the Protection of the Sea (ACOPS) Conference (South Africa, 1998).
Western African States signed the Abidjan Convention in 1981. This obligates them to place controls on land and marine-based sources of pollution, to harmonize and strengthen national policies and to cooperate with other countries in the sub-region to enhance environmental management. Parties to the Convention are also required to take steps to control and mitigate coastal erosion and its causes, and to develop contingency plans to prevent and deal with pollution arising from oil exploration and transport activities. Under the Convention, countries are also obliged to conduct environmental impact assessments prior to new developments in the coastal zone as a means of regulating uncoordinated, unplanned developments which could accelerate pollution and erosion. Unfortunately, the Convention was unsuccessful in establishing an effective Regional Coordinating Unit, and progress has been slow. In response, UNEP has established a joint secretariat for the Abidjan and Nairobi Conventions, operational from September 2000. The new work programme of the Abidjan Convention countries includes assessments of coastal erosion and activities for improving the management of coastal ecosystems, with a special focus on mangroves and oil pollution.
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