(CNN) -- Nigeria's state oil company rejected criticism from a leading human rights group Wednesday, calling an Amnesty International report "inaccurate."



File image of Shell's oil and gas terminal on Bonny Island in southern Nigeria's Niger Delta.



"We have issues with the report," said Levi Ajuonoma, a spokesman for Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.



Amnesty said Tuesday that pollution and environmental impacts from the oil industry in the Niger Delta are creating a "human rights tragedy" in which local people suffer poor health and loss of livelihood.



Governments and oil companies are failing to be accountable for the problems, Amnesty said in its report, called "Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta."



But the state oil company said it was local communities who cause much of the environmental damage by vandalizing pipelines for monetary gain.



"We take environmental damage very seriously," Ajuonoma said.



"Pipeline damage is a major cause of pollution," he argued, blaming "communities who... vandalize pipelines and make claims on the oil company operating in the area."



Amnesty leveled a wide range of charges in its report.



"People living in the Niger Delta have to drink, cook with and wash in polluted water," said Audrey Gaughran, who co-authored the report. "They eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins -- if they are lucky enough to be able to still find fish. The land they farm on is being destroyed.



"After oil spills, the air they breathe smells of oil, gas and other pollutants. People complain of breathing problems and skin lesions, and yet neither the government nor the oil companies monitor the human impacts of oil pollution."



The report looks at oil spills, gas flaring, waste dumping and other environmental impacts from the oil industry. The majority of the evidence in the report relates to Shell, the main oil company operating in the region.



"Despite its public claims to be a socially and environmentally responsible corporation, Shell continues to directly harm human rights through its failure to adequately prevent and mitigate pollution and environmental damage in the Niger Delta," Gaughran said.



A Shell spokesman said the company shares Amnesty's concern for the people in the Niger Delta but disputes the group's assessment of its corporate accountability.



"We feel that the root causes of the Niger Delta's humanitarian issues are poverty, corruption, crime, militancy, and violence. This report does not acknowledge these issues to any substantive degree, but concentrates on oil and gas issues in isolation, and as such, its value is limited," said a spokesman at the company's headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, who asked not to be identified per company policy.



"This report brings no new insights or analysis to help oil companies such as SPDC improve managing the issues of the Niger Delta," the Shell spokesman said. "Instead, in parts it draws wide-ranging and superficial conclusions from a number of these deeply complex issues, offering little underlying analysis to support those conclusions."



SPDC is the Shell Petroleum Development Company, the national oil and gas company in Nigeria. Shell owns a 30-percent stake in the company while the Nigerian government owns 55 percent.



The Niger Delta is a region in Nigeria consisting of nine oil-producing states. It has a land area of about 46,500 square miles (75,000 square km) -- about the same size as the Czech Republic or the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).



An area of rich biological diversity, the region contains the world's third-largest wetland with the most extensive freshwater swamp forest, according to the UNDP. More than half the area contains creeks and small islands, while the rest is rainforest, the UNDP says.



At the same time, the Niger Delta produces the oil wealth that accounts for the bulk of Nigeria's foreign earnings, the UNDP says.



Amnesty says the majority of people living in the Niger Delta depend on the natural environment for their food and livelihood, particularly through agriculture and fisheries.
Who is causing much of the damage? What group says the oil industry is creating a human rights tragedy? What is the oil industry in Niger Delta creating? What do people in Niger Delta have to do? What group is causing much of the damage? In what country is the Niger Delta? How many oil producing states are in Nigeria? How many oil-producing states are in the Niger Delta?
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question: Who is causing much of the damage?, answer: local communities | question: What group says the oil industry is creating a human rights tragedy?, answer: Amnesty International | question: What is the oil industry in Niger Delta creating?, answer: "human rights tragedy" | question: What do people in Niger Delta have to do?, answer: drink, cook with and wash in polluted water," | question: What group is causing much of the damage?, answer: local communities | question: In what country is the Niger Delta?, answer: Nigeria | question: How many oil producing states are in Nigeria?, answer: nine | question: How many oil-producing states are in the Niger Delta?, answer: nine