‘The water is no longer our friend’: how dredging is pushing Lagos Lagoon towards ecosystem collapse – photo essay

Taking sand from the Nigerian city’s lagoon to supply a building boom harms more than fish – it affects the entire food chain, erodes coastlines and is depriving fishing communities of their livelihoods

Before dawn, when the noise of Lagos’s https://culturecustodian.com/the-danfo-story-on-lagos-enduring-cultural-icon/#:~:text=The%2520Lagos%2520State%2520government%2520once%2520again%2520announced,the%2520yellow%2520buses%252C%2520popularly%2520known%2520as%2520danfo.">danfohttps://culturecustodian.com/the-danfo-story-on-lagos-enduring-cultural-icon/#:~:text=The%2520Lagos%2520State%2520government%2520once%2520again%2520announced,the%2520yellow%2520buses%252C%2520popularly%2520known%2520as%2520danfo."> https://culturecustodian.com/the-danfo-story-on-lagos-enduring-cultural-icon/#:~:text=The%2520Lagos%2520State%2520government%2520once%2520again%2520announced,the%2520yellow%2520buses%252C%2520popularly%2520known%2520as%2520danfo.">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 the dredging machines, pulling up the lagoon bed and spitting out wet sand that will be used in the construction of high-rise blocks, housing estates and flyovers.

Sand dredging is regulated by the https://lagosstate.gov.ng/news/all/view/685b8c725e4c9d6cecaade30">Lagos state government and the https://niwa.gov.ng/">waterways authority but in a city of more than 20 million people, where sharp sand has never been in higher demand, not all dredging https://punchng.com/10625-cubic-metres-of-sand-illegally-dredged-daily-lagos-laments/#google_vignette">is being done by the book.

Dredging leaves its mark on the landscape along the shores of the Lagos Lagoon in Epe