Writer and investigative journalist Peter Maass has pointed out the devastation caused by the pursuit of oil reserves in the developing world. In Nigeria, throughout some 30 years of oil extraction, the government was \"a carnival of corruption," with a series of military dictators siphoning off the oil wealth into foreign bank accounts. Meanwhile, hundreds of spills ruined farmland and fisheries. Social inequalities grew, as did tribal violence. For years, the Niger Delta, the heart of the oil-producing region, has been the scene of terrible pollution and of an undeclared and brutal civil war