Nnimmo Bassey

Nnimmo Bassey with his Right Livelihood Award

Nnimmo Bassey (born 1958) is a Nigerian architect, environmentalist activist, author and poet, who chaired Friends of the Earth International from 2008 through 2012 [1] and was Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action for two decades.[2] He was one of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment in 2009.[3] In 2010, Nnimmo Bassey was named co-winner of the Right Livelihood Award,[4] and in 2012 he was awarded the Rafto Prize.[5] He serves on the Advisory Board and is Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an environmental think tank and advocacy organization.[6][7]

Work

Bassey was born June 11, 1958. He studied architecture and practiced as an architect "in the public sector for 10 years." He was active on human rights issues in the 1980s when he served as on the Board of Directors of Nigeria's Civil Liberties Organization. In 1993, he co-founded a Nigerian NGO known as Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria) in order to advocate, educate and organize around environmental human rights issues in Nigeria. Since 1996, Bassey and Environmental Rights Action led Oilwatch Africa and, beginning in 2006, also led the Global South network, Oilwatch International, striving to educate and mobilize communities in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Ghana, Uganda, South America and in Southeast Asia to "resist destructive oil and gas extraction activities." [8] At the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Bassey - despite being accredited - was "physically kept out" of a meeting.[9]

Publications

  • To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa Publisher: Fahamu (Jul 1 2010) ISBN 1-906387-53-2 ISBN 978-1-906387-53-2
  • Trade and human rights in the Niger Delta
  • SHELL'S FPSO poses serious dangers

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-11-22. Retrieved 2009-12-10.
  2. ↑ "The Right Livelyhood Award: List of Laureates: Nnimmo Bassey 2010". Right Livelihood Award Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  3. ↑ http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1924149_1924153_1924211,00.html The Time - Heroes of the Environment 2009
  4. ↑ "Right Livelihood Award: 2010 - Nnimmo Bassey". Archived from the original on 2014-04-22. Retrieved 2010-10-28.
  5. ↑ «Raftoprisen til Nnimmo Bassey», Vårt Land, 27. september 2012.
  6. ↑ "Health of Mother Earth Foundation". Retrieved February 11, 2014.
  7. ↑ "We Need to Overturn the System". Health of Mother Earth Foundation. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  8. ↑ "Nnimmo Bassey Biography". Friends of the Earth International. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  9. ↑ http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/17/a_naked_form_of_blackmail_naomi
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