Republic of Congo approves oil exploration in Conkouati-Douli
But there’s only silence from the donors that have poured millions into forest protection in the country.
On 18 January 2024, the Republic of Congo approved oil exploration in Conkouati-Douli National Park. The Council of Ministers awarded a permit to China Oil Natural Gas Overseas Holding United Group despite the fact that the 1999 Decree establishing the national park specifically bans oil exploration and exploitation in the park and its buffer zone.
The silence of the donors
The main donors to the Conkouati-Douli National Park are the EU, the Agence Française de Développement, and the Global Environment Facility.
In a press release, Greenpeace highlights the donor’s “deafening silence” on the Republic of Congo government’s failure to protect the country’s most biodiverse protected area:
The decision represents yet another embarrassment for donors who pay lip service to protecting Congo’s forests and biodiversity, greenwashing the Sassou regime at European taxpayers’ expense.
In 2021, the French NGO Noé signed a 20-year agreement to manage the national park.
In September 2022, the EU signed an US$800,000 agreement with Noé to “ensure the sustainable management of the flora and fauna” in the national park.
In October 2023, Virginijus Sinkevičius, the EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, signed an EU-Congo Forest Partnership Roadmap. The signing took place at the Summit of the Three Basins of Biodiversity Ecosystems and Tropical Forests.
In a press statement about the signing of the roadmap, Sinkevičius said that,
“Tropical forests are our lungs, the life-support system of the world. They should be protected and sustainably used to safeguard biodiversity, tackle climate change, and guarantee the livelihood of people who directly depend on forest products. Today’s roadmap will result in a strengthened dialogue between our countries in addressing deforestation and forest degradation in Congo and working towards a sustainable forest economy.”
The roadmap was backed with an additional €25 million from the EU.
In December 2023, at COP28, the EU, France, the Bezos Earth Fund, and the Seed Fund for Country Packages for Forests, Nature and Climate (which consists of the Rob Walton Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Conservation International) committed to a US$50 million Country Package for Forests Nature and Climate for the Republic of Congo. Technical support comes from the Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF, and Noé.
Greenpeace notes that just one week later, Pierre Oba, Minister of Mines, gave a 1,500 hectare gold prospecting permit in the buffer zone of Conkouati-Douli National Park to a Chinese oil company called Guo Pétrole.
In 2019, the Central African Forest Initiative signed a US$65 million letter of intent supposedly to protect the Republic of Congo’s forests. The deal did not rule out oil or mining in the country’s forests and peatlands.
Norway is the largest funder of the Central African Forest Initiative. The agreement made no mention of Norway’s interests in extracting oil from the Republic of Congo. Greenpeace notes that Norwegian company PetroNor is doing record business drilling oil off the coast of the Republic of Congo.
Fortress conservation
Before the park was created, a co-management charter had been agreed between public authorities and the local communities living in and around the national park. But then Wildlife Conservation Society partnered with the Ministry of Forestry Economy and Sustainable Development to manage the park.
A 2004 paper found that the co-management structure was being obstructed “not by Conkouati dwellers, not by the State, not by logging or oil companies, nor even by anti-conservationists, but by a nature protection NGO”.
A 2017 Rainforest Foundation UK report notes that the management of the park focussed on monitoring and anti-poaching activities at the expense of development activities for local communities.
Greenpeace points out that the oil exploration concession inside Conkouati-Douli National Park is a “blow” to the “flawed ‘fortress conservation’ ideology”.
Greenpeace’s press release quotes Dr. Fabrice Lamfu Yengong, forest campaigner for the Congo Basin campaign at Greenpeace Africa, as saying that,
“While the Global North continues to back armed ecoguards in Congo and elsewhere notorious for violence against local people on ancestral lands, its love of nature stops short of criticizing oil, logging and mining multinationals.”
On 7 February 2024, Rosalie Matondo, Minister of Forest Economy, announced that President Denis Sassou Nguesso had ordered the construction of a new paved road through the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.
In September 2023, UNESCO added Odzala-Kokoua National Park to its World Heritage List, despite IUCN’s recommendation to postpone doing so.
The park is managed by a South African company called African Parks. Indigenous Baka communities living in and around the national park accuse ecoguards employed by African Parks of serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture.
Greenpeace’s Dr. Lamfu asks, “When will donors learn that greenwashing kleptocracy only encourages it?”
Great reporting, thanks! When is a "Park" not a park? Depends on who's looking, apparently. But the fraud is in obtaining funds from contrasting and conflicting interests. Only allowed if you have yellow hair.