This interactive tool provides a before/after visual evidence of the Osun River's environmental situation, using Knight Lab's Juxtapose JS tool. This powerful interactive comparison reveals the devastating transformation of Nigeria's sacred Osun River across a pivotal decade (2014-2024).
The year 2014 serves as a critical baseline, representing the state of the river system before the massive expansion of Chinese mining operations and the full-scale influx of miners following the Zamfara crisis. By 2022, the cumulative impact of intensified gold extraction, agricultural chemical use, industrial expansion, and inadequate environmental regulation had created an environmental disaster of unprecedented scale.
The aerial view of 2024 shows the visible effect of Industrial-scale mining encroachment with forest clearance for mining access roads and equipment staging, riverside vegetation loss affecting natural filtration systems, Infrastructure development supporting large-scale extraction operations, and erosion patterns indicating intensive soil disruption among other issues.
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