{"id":54875,"date":"2024-02-21T10:32:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T10:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/?p=54875"},"modified":"2024-03-01T09:19:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T09:19:10","slug":"donors-deafening-silence-after-republic-of-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/press\/54875\/donors-deafening-silence-after-republic-of-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"Donors\u2019 deafening silence after Republic of Congo\u00a0green-lights oil exploration in Conkouati National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yaound\u00e9, 20 February 2024<\/strong> – Six weeks after signing a $50 million forest protection deal with donors, the Republic of Congo has given the green light to oil exploration<\/a> in Conkouati-Douli National Park, the country’s most biodiverse protected area and home to fishing communities since at least the 13th century.<\/p>\n\n

The 18 January decision by Congo’s Council of Ministers<\/a> to award a permit to “China Oil Natural Gas Overseas Holding United” is a violation of the 1999 Presidential decree<\/a> establishing Conkouati, which bans, inter alia, oil exploration and exploitation in the park and its buffer zone.<\/p>\n\n

The decision represents yet another embarrassment for donors who pay lip service to protecting Congo\u2019s forests and biodiversity, greenwashing the Sassou regime at European taxpayers’ expense.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s also a blow to their flawed \u201cfortress conservation<\/a>\u201d ideology. \u201cWhile 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,\u201d said Dr. Fabrice Lamfu Yengong, forest campaigner for the Congo Basin campaign at Greenpeace Africa.<\/p>\n\n

Conkouati’s major institutional donors include the EU, the Agence fran\u00e7aise de d\u00e9veloppement (AFD) and the World Bank-administered Global Environment Facility. <\/p>\n\n

The EU is particularly compromised.  In September 2022, it signed an \u20ac800,000 financing agreement<\/a> with the French NGO No\u00e9 to “insure the sustainable management” of the park\u2019s flora and fauna.  A month later, at the Three Tropical Forest Basins Summit in Brazzaville, the EU Environment Commissioner signed a “EU-Congo Forest Partnership Roadmap<\/a>” designed to “safeguard Congolese forests and support the development of sustainable value chains.”  The accord was “backed by an additional 25 million EUR,” the Commissioner tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

In December, at COP28, the EU, France and a handful of private donors committed to a $50 million Congo \u201cPartnership for forest ecosystems, nature and climate<\/a>.\u201d  A week later the Mining Minister handed out a 1,500 ha gold prospecting permit<\/a> in Conkouati\u2019s buffer zone to Chinese oil firm Zhi Guo P\u00e9trole.<\/p>\n\n

Norway, too, shares blame for the plunder of Conkouati.  In 2019, the Norwegian-led Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) signed a $65 million Letter of Intent with Congo.  It called merely for \u201cminimizing the impact<\/a>\u201d of oil and mining on forests<\/a> \u2013 without mentioning Norway\u2019s interests in Congo\u2019s oil sector.  Today, Norwegian firm Petronor is doing record business<\/a> offshore.<\/p>\n\n

Last September UNESCO added Congo\u2019s Odzala-Kokoua National Park to its World Heritage List, mysteriously ignoring IUCN\u2019s recommendation to defer doing so.  For years, the park (surrounded on all sides by logging concessions) has been the scene of atrocities<\/a> committed by ecoguards under the management of the South African firm African Parks. On 7 February Congo\u2019s Forest Minister announced<\/a> that the President has ordered the construction of a new paved road in Odzala. That should make this militia\u2019s work easier.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhen will donors learn that greenwashing kleptocracy only encourages it?\u201d wonders and concludes Dr. Lamfu. <\/p>\n\n

END<\/p>\n\n

Contact<\/p>\n\n

Raphael Mavambu<\/strong>, Media and Communications, rmavambu@greenpeace.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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