In a newly published study, the most effective way to break down hydrocarbon in oil contaminated soil in the Niger Delta has been examined. The study involved members of the IUCN Niger Delta Panel, in addition to international remediation experts and scientists, amongst whom were Rob van Spanning and Juami van Gils from the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at VU Amsterdam. It was found that the treatments were successful in removing up to 53% of the total petroleum hydrocarbon in the soil within 16 weeks. A comparison between treatments demonstrated that most were no more effective than agricultural fertilizer addition alone, according to the article published online in Science of Total Environment (April 2017). For the IUCN announcement please visit https://www.iucn.org/news/business-and-biodiversity/201707/scientific-study-explores-new-techniques-remove-oil-contaminated-soil-niger-delta.