Congo-Brazzaville: Global Witness alarms about oil projects in the North

In an investigation published jointly with the online newspaper Mediapart and the German daily Der Spiegel, the British NGO Global Witness is alarmed by the oil projects in the peat bog zone in northern Congo, the so-called Central Basin zone.

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Touching peat bogs means taking the risk of setting off a climate bomb, for Colin Robertson, a researcher at Global Witness. These large areas of rainforest in northern Congo are home to nearly 30 billion tonnes of carbon, three times the annual global emissions. However, a Congolese company, PEPA, controlled by billionaire Claude Wilfrid Etoka, claims to have discovered in this area 360 million barrels of oil. A " miraculous discovery " qualified by Mediapart , co-author of a survey published jointly with the British NGO , " at best grossly embellished, at worst completely phony ".

However, a first drilling was recently carried out in the Ngoki block, which worries Colin Robertson: " If we develop an oil industry there, it will require the construction of roads, perhaps pipelines, so there is risks. In the Ngoki permit area, there are peat bogs of 6,000 km2, these are quite large peat bogs. The possible impacts were not really studied by the project. "

For Global Witness, in fact, the environmental impact studies brandished by the oil company are biased, because they were carried out before the discovery of the peat bogs. In addition, Colin Robertson recalls that President Denis Sassou-Nguesso is committed to providing these peatlands with a legal status allowing them to be protected . But this statute will not come into force until 2025. In the meantime, there is a great risk of seeing the oil companies ransack the sector. This is why Global Witness calls on these companies, including the French company Total, which has an exploration license north of Ngoki, to give up their activities.

NEW: The #Congo Basin's climate-critical peatland #forests 🌳 are under threat from an oil project owned by a wealthy magnate, our new investigation with @EICnetwork reveals ➡️ https://t.co/vj95APWqIF pic.twitter.com/gdSsXtTNGt

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