Before dawn, when the noise of Lagos’s danfo buses fills the air and generators rumble to life, the city’s lagoon is already stirring. Not from fish splashing or canoes gliding, but from the long suction pipes of dredging machines, pulling up the lagoon bed and spitting out wet sand for the construction of high-rise blocks, housing estates and flyovers.
Sand dredging is regulated by the Lagos state government and the waterways authority, but in a city of more than 20 million people, where sharp sand has never been in higher demand, not all dredging is done by the book. Unregulated dredging and mining have eroded the seabed by nearly six metres between the reclaimed Banana Island and the nearby Third Mainland Bridge, according to a study from the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR).
“When you dredge sand at that scale without a proper assessment of its environmental impacts, it destroys or wipes out certain species, which harms fisheries and, ultimately, everyone who depends on them,” says Dr Nnimmo Bassey, director of the ecological thinktank Health of Mother Earth Foundation (Homef).
For coastal communities such as Epe, Oto-Awori, Era Town and Makoko, the effects are devastating. Fasasi Adekunle, a 55-year-old fisher from Epe, says: “We used to cast our nets at 7pm and return before midday the next day with enough tilapia to earn at least 30,000 naira (£16). Now we go farther, spend more on fuel, and sometimes return almost empty handed.” The lagoon, once a dependable lifeline, has grown unpredictable. “The water is no longer our friend,” he adds.
Declining fish populations are a common complaint. Scientists say dredging increases turbidity, muddying the water and destroying breeding grounds. Ajoke Orebiyi, a 42-year-old fishmonger, says her income has fallen by nearly half in five years. “Before, fishers would return before noon with full nets. Now they travel much farther, and spend even more on fuel, only to return with almost nothing.”
