cc International media reports on growing instability in the Niger Delta largely in terms of its effect on global oil supply and prices, writes Kia Mistilis, but for region’s 12 million inhabitants, the struggle is about their survival. Despite the vast wealth oil revenue has generated for Nigeria, communities in the Delta continue to live in ‘abject poverty’. As peak oil and a looming world energy crisis raise the stakes even higher, these local communities and ecosystems are bearing the brunt of conflict between activists, militant groups and the Nigerian forces protecting the economic interests of the government and multi-national companies.