Paper short abstract:

This study explores the linkages between the sound of nature and human well-being, and between globalized resource extraction and the inevitability of loss of environmental sound in Nigeria’s ecologically ravaged, oil-rich, but paradoxically impoverished Niger-Delta region.

Paper long abstract:

This study explores the linkages between the sound of nature and human well-being, and between globalized resource extraction and the inevitability of loss of environmental sound, muting of soundscapes and the stifling of environmental awareness in Nigeria’s oil-rich, but paradoxically impoverished Niger-Delta region. At the heart of this study lie sundry explanations that underscore struggles around resource extraction and distribution, as well as the ways in which bizarre resource exploitation of the Niger-Delta environment destroys the sounds of nature, threaten sustainable development now and mortgage the future of humans and non-biological habitat of the next generation. The study argues that sound is a critical environmental enabler as sounds notably ‘wind, sea waves, rise in sea levels, rain, thunderstorms, floods, combine to ‘provide information about weather, species occupying the local ecology, communication between and among species, signals on what is happening around them, and signs of danger or opportunity’. The article examines the politics of the nature of natural sound in contexts where resource extraction creates adverse environmental transformation, threatens the serenity of local people and raises questions about how resource exploitation hampers the sound of nature and obliterates the central role of developing the needed awareness of environmental change. In this regard, this study offers some explanations for the loss of environmental sound and soundscapes in the Niger Delta and the prospects for humanizing the future of resource extraction in the region.

Keywords: Niger-Delta, Soundscapes, Environmental awareness, Resource extraction, Sustainable development