“The environment goes hand in hand with human rights”

“Fossil fuels are destroying everything and changing the climate,” says Nigeria’s Nnimmo Bassey, one of Africa’s foremost ecologists. The cause he took up in the 1980s has taken on a new urgency now that COP21 is underway. The 57-year-old architect campaigns for human rights and environmental justice, which he considers intertwined. Mr. Bassey is public enemy number one of the oil industry in Nigeria, a staunch advocate, like Ken Saro-Wiwa, of the Niger Delta’s peoples, and the Health Director of the Mother Earth Foundation. He is also involved in the campaign against genetically-modi?  ed foods. “Nowadays, you have to pick sides: ?  ght for life or allow destruction and death,” he says. “Fossil fuels must stay in the ground to save us from global warming.” The activist believes that international solidarity, awareness-raising campaigns and legal action are the only ways to ensure the planet’s future.