On 16 March 2021, Complete – the French firm ranked seventh globally for manufacturing of oil – introduced plans to plant a “40,000 hectare forest” within the Republic of Congo, the purpose of which is to “sequester greater than 10 million tons of CO2 over 20 years”. The corporate said that it was dedicated to “the event of pure carbon sinks in Africa”. The tree-planting on the savannah-lands of the Bateke Plateau would “create a forest surroundings that may finally assist broaden the ecosystems’ biodiversity”, claimed the corporate. However, in actuality, the challenge is an egregious try to greenwash Complete’s main contribution to local weather change, and conceals possible critical native ecological and social harm. Behind it lies an internet of shady offers, geopolitical manoeuvring and worldwide company dissembling.
Protecting up a doubtlessly devastating oil growth
Complete’s announcement follows its creation of a Nature Based mostly Options (NBS) unit in June 2019 to develop ‘pure carbon sinks’ to “sequester CO2 from its operations”. It’s one in every of a number of oil firms, together with Shell, Eni, and Equinor, which are backing NBS to keep away from lowering their emissions. However Complete’s announcement was lengthy anticipated. In 2019, it had acquired a extremely controversial new oil exploration allow in a close-by a part of the Congo. The 1.5-million-hectare concession (see map under) lies beneath what has just lately been revealed to be the biggest pure peat deposit within the tropics and is believed to be some of the carbon-dense ecosystems wherever.
Exploring and exploiting this concession wouldn’t solely trigger rising carbon emissions from any oil found there, however doubtlessly additionally disturb and destroy a minimum of a few of the peat deposits, and presumably the wildlife too. In 2019, Complete began prospects for some form of greenwashing scheme to distract from this new triple-whammy for the surroundings. It was rumoured to be contemplating shopping for up previous logging concessions within the Democratic Republic of Congo to run as offset areas.
By 2019, Complete’s place within the Republic of Congo had develop into a bit sophisticated. Its predecessor Elf oil has benefited vastly from concessions off the coast of Congo for practically fifty years. However official maps present that by 2018 it had acquired two of ten new oil exploration blocks onshore, which collectively cowl the a lot of the north and east of the nation (see map). These areas are completely swathed in a patchwork of dense tropical rainforest, wetland, peatbog and pure savannahs. They’re residence to not solely a few of the final remaining really conventional Aka Indigenous ‘Pygmies’, but additionally many hundreds of Bantu farmers residing within the forest and plains.
Sadly, this pure patchwork has already been nearly completely carved up into logging concessions and strictly protected areas from which hundreds of individuals have been evicted. Palm oil plantations, diamond and gold mines, and new roads are including to the stress. The brand new oil concessions reminiscent of Complete’s, superimposed onto what’s already a extremely conflictual area might doubtlessly function the death-knell for this globally essential habitat for folks and wildlife.
Complete’s ‘Koli’ concession within the far northwest was significantly alarming for conservationists, and was doubtlessly problematic for Complete, because it completely covers the 4,000-square-kilometre Nouabale-Ndoki Nationwide Park, which is managed by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
The second of the Complete exploration blocks, referred to as Mokelé-Mbembé (the title comes from the legendary monster that supposedly lives in Lake Tele, positioned throughout the concession) was awarded to Complete by Congo’s hydrocarbon ministry in July 2019. This concession coincides with in depth peatlands which UK-based scientists say might be as much as practically six metres deep and comprise tons of of tons of carbon per hectare. It additionally covers a part of the Lake Tele Group Reserve, additionally run by WCS, which the conservationists declare has the very best inhabitants density of lowland gorillas wherever. The Mokelé-Mbembé concession, although, nonetheless required ‘ratification’ by the Congolese parliament.
Step in, Emmanuel Macron
Concurrently the Congolese authorities was making ready at hand out large components of its territory to Complete and different oil firms in mid-2019, the French and Norwegian governments had been how one can give it cash for supposedly defending the nation’s surroundings. Underneath the Central Africa Forests Initiative (CAFI), a number of hundred million {dollars} of principally Norwegian and a few French support cash had already been pledged to different international locations within the Congo Basin area, principally for questionable initiatives and sometimes in a lot controversy.
On 3 September 2019, it was instantly revealed that an settlement was to be signed between CAFI and the Republic of Congo throughout a gathering in Paris between President Macron and Congo’s long-term dictator, Denis Sassou-Nguesso.
Based on CAFI, US$65 million was to be made obtainable for “the safety and sustainable administration of peatlands within the Republic of Congo . . . these peatlands are of important significance within the battle towards local weather change, as they might comprise practically three years of world greenhouse gasoline emissions.” The cash would additionally fund initiatives to “outline the modalities of planning, exploration and exploitation of mining and hydrocarbon actions after they happen in forest or peatland house, in order to cut back the influence”. Greenpeace dismissed the deal as mainly ‘greenlighting’ drilling of oil in the midst of Congo’s forests and peatlands.
Curiously, no point out was made on the time by CAFI, France or Norway that Complete oil was at the exact same time negotiating to safe lastly an oil concession that might trigger exactly the issues CAFI’s cash ostensibly aimed to keep away from. Patrick Pouyanné, the pinnacle of Complete, met with Sassou-Nguesso the day after the CAFI settlement had been signed, and President Macron and Pouyanné met the day after that. Approval of an oil production-sharing settlement with Complete was formally authorized by the Congolese authorities in December, 4 months after the US$65 million CAFI ‘support’ bundle had been authorized.
Chronology
5 April 2019:
Central Africa Forests Initiative (CAFI) publicizes intention to offer US$65 million in funding to Congo
17 July 2019:
Authorities of Congo indicators settlement with Complete for Mokelé-Mbembé oil exploration block, topic to ratification
3 September 2019:
President Macron meets with Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, and indicators settlement on behalf of CAFI for US$65 million ‘inexperienced support’ bundle to Congo
4 September 2019:
CEO of Complete oil, Patrick Pouyanné meets Congolese President Sassou-Nguesso
5 September 2019:
President Macron meets CEO of Complete oil, Patrick Pouyanné
31 December 2019:
Congo ratifies oil manufacturing sharing settlement with Complete
1 October 2020:
Congo’s Official Journal publicizes that President Sassou had granted a 70,089-hectare concession to ‘Forest Impartial Congo’
3 November 2020:
Congolese authorities publicizes formation of ‘public-private partnership’ with ‘ForestNeutral Congo’, owned by Forêt Ressources Administration group chief, Bernard Cassagne
12 March 2021:
Complete and ‘ForestNeutral Congo’ signal take care of Congolese authorities
16 March 2021:
Complete publicizes plantations’ offset scheme
21 March 2021:
President Sassou-Nguesso ‘wins’ one other rigged election
Turning a savannah right into a ‘inexperienced desert’?
So by the tip of 2019, Complete had acquired its most well-liked oil concession, and Congo had acquired US$65 million in worldwide funding together with the status and credibility that went with it. While Complete didn’t must face the not possible activity of justifying drilling underneath the Nouabale-Ndoki Nationwide Park, some of the prestigious protected areas in Africa, it nonetheless had the issue that its newly-acquired concession was coated in pristine forest, wetlands and peatlands.
Complete initially began discussions on how one can greenwash its operations with the main French institute CIRAD, the Centre for Agricultural Analysis for Growth, however a minimum of one outstanding researcher there felt that Complete ought to merely not drill for oil in delicate locations in Congo within the first place. Complete evidently then turned to a brand new company for assist with implementation, CIRAD’s longtime accomplice Forêt Ressources Administration, a consultancy with shut hyperlinks to the French authorities and a really lengthy historical past of supporting the forest-wrecking logging business in Africa.
As with nature-based options elsewhere, it was evidently assumed that the destruction of non-forest ecosystems reminiscent of savannahs for carbon-absorbing plantations could be a lot simpler to decorate up as environmentally useful. Complete claimed in its announcement of the Bateke scheme that “Planting two forms of acacias on sandy plateaus, uncovered to recurrent bush fires, will finally enhance the biodiversity of this ecosystem”. In actual fact a 2018 paper in BioTropica described the Bateke Plateau within the Republic of Congo as “one of many final frontiers for ecology, with little recognized about its floristics and physiognomy. Regardless of occupying 89,800 km2 and its significance for native livelihoods, its ecology and ecosystem features are poorly understood.”
What does the challenge really include, and who controls what?
Particulars of the challenge, together with who’s answerable for what, and even how huge and the place precisely the scheme is and what it is going to include, is mired in conflicting and obscure data – not helped by the truth that little or no of the important thing documentation, reminiscent of contracts or plans, has been made publicly obtainable.
Complete’s announcement on 16 March 2021 states that Complete and Forêt Ressources Administration (FRM) “have signed a partnership settlement with the Republic of the Congo” for its 40,000-hectare challenge. Nonetheless, 4 days earlier, it had been reported within the Congolese media, full with an image of a signing ceremony, that ‘Complete nature primarily based options (TNBS)’ and an organization referred to as ‘Forest Impartial Congo’ had signed an settlement with the ministry for a 70,000-hectare ‘land reserve’ in Lefini, on the Bateke Plateau. The signatory on behalf of ‘Forest Impartial Congo’ was Bernard Cassagne, the Founder and CEO of FRM. Based on Congo’s Official Journal of 1 October 2020, a 70,089 hectare concession had been granted to the beforehand unknown ‘Forest Impartial Congo’ by President Sassou already in August 2020. A ‘public-private partnership’ between the Congolese authorities and ‘Forest Impartial Congo’ was introduced in November 2020, which claimed that the corporate would develop 50,000 hectares. The exact and full possession construction of ‘Forest Impartial Congo’ is just not recognized, and particulars of it are usually not obtainable publicly.
In addition to differing from Complete’s personal announcement about which entities the scheme entails, the 12 March 2021 information report included data not included in Complete’s “new forest” press launch three days later: the scheme would come with a sawmill and log veneer peeling manufacturing unit to “provide Brazzaville with 32,000 cubic metres of plywood 40,000 cubic metres of sawn timber” per yr. There may even be a 2.5 MW ‘cogeneration’ electrical energy plant, presumably run on any wooden that was not changed into planks or plywood.
The fast-growing acacia species that Complete intends to plant are usually not native to the Congo, and even wherever in Africa, however to Australia and Southeast Asia. These that aren’t processed into wooden will likely be burned to provide electrical energy, presumably to run the noticed and plywood mill. (Native folks could be fortunate to be thrown some waste wooden to cook dinner their dinners on). In brief, while Complete and its PR brokers overtly described their enterprise as making a 40,000-hectare “forest”, they may in reality be destroying a part of a largely unknown pure savannah ecosystem to be able to create a 40,000-hectare intensive wooden farm of non-native species with related timber processing services.
Even when the plantations survive the “recurrent bush fires” that are a characteristic of the Bateke Plateau, their eventual conversion into boards or fuelwood implies that any carbon sequestration advantages are, in fact, very short-term, negligible, and even damaging. Native vegetation should be cleared to make method for the plantations, and any carbon held within the soil is more likely to be disturbed by cyclical harvesting of the timber, in all probability by heavy equipment. However, Complete claims that the challenge will generate “carbon credit, licensed by unbiased organizations, which is able to allow it to cut back its web CO2 emissions.”
It’s serving to Africans, in fact . . .
The corporate claims that “an area growth fund will assist well being, dietary and academic initiatives to profit neighboring villages”. The truth that there are ‘neighbouring villages’ means that the land is presently utilized by these villages. A challenge by the Rainforest Basis UK a couple of years in the past on the north-eastern fringe of the Bateke Plateau discovered, as nearly all over the place else within the Congo Basin, that customary group lands there are primarily contiguous. It appears possible that the whole space for the challenge is claimed underneath customary tenure, and used for gathering, searching and presumably rotational subsistence farming. As well as, maps present that many areas throughout the Bateke Plateau are inhabited by Indigenous ‘Pygmy’ folks.
Other than Complete’s obscure point out of “neighbouring communities”, nothing has been mentioned about the place any such communities are, how many individuals dwell there, whether or not they rely on the land or, most significantly, whether or not they have even been advised something concerning the challenge. Even when native occupants use and declare customary rights to the land, there isn’t any proper in Congolese legislation to really uphold such tenure. All land is technically ‘owned’ by the state. If Complete or one other challenge accomplice has been granted a ‘concession’ by the Congolese state, any inhabitants might merely be evicted. There was no report that Complete plans to seek the advice of or interact with native folks, or respect their land rights.
The Silence of the Conservationists
Curiously, the Wildlife Conservation Society – the main conservation business presence within the Republic of Congo – has mentioned nothing publically about both Complete’s oil concession that threatens its Lac Tele Group Reserve, or the corporate’s offset scheme within the savannah. WCS says concerning the Bateke Plateau that it’s a “distinctive panorama for central Africa. Dominated by a large historic sand dune system, the land is roofed by massive grass and wooded savanna patches separated by effective traces of dense gallery forest, and a number of other turquoise blue river valleys…residence to an fascinating biodiversity discovered nowhere else within the Congo Basin”.
Maybe WCS has discovered from previous expertise that it’s greatest to not problem something the despotic Congolese authorities does. As an alternative of standing up for the now threatened wildlife in each Complete’s oil concession and the offset web site, a WCS web site explains that “we’re presently serving to the Authorities of Congo to map the [Bateke Plateau’s] biodiversity, with the eventual objective of making a nationwide park”. The proposed new Bambama-Lekana park, which WCS wish to cowl 5,300 sq. kilometres of savannah west of Lefini, might maybe develop into a WCS ‘offset’ for Complete’s ‘offset’. After all this might imply that Bateke’s human inhabitants can stay up for being evicted from much more of their land, as WCS has achieved in different nationwide parks it has helped to determine within the Congo.
Non-natural non-solutions
The Complete challenge in Congo’s Bateke Plateau highlights lots of the critical issues which are more likely to happen within the title of so-called ‘Nature-Based mostly Options’ – the notion that supposedly ‘pure programs’ can absorb atmosphere-changing carbon dioxide emitted elsewhere. It’s more likely to be an environmental and presumably a social catastrophe, and have little or no optimistic influence on local weather change. It can cowl up Complete’s continued huge emissions of greenhouse gases, and its doubtlessly extremely damaging oil concession close by within the Congo.
However the entire idea of Nature-Based mostly Options was initially concocted by the conservation business – together with the Wildlife Conservation Society – as a way of with the ability to promote carbon credit from protected areas, and thus producing funds to create much more protected areas. The thought a lot appeals to main polluters like oil firms, in addition to wealthy world governments desirous to keep away from the exhausting political selections wanted to quickly scale back fossil gasoline consumption. Within the state of affairs created in 2017 by The Nature Conservancy of nature-based options accounting for 37% of local weather mitigation by 2030 – a declare a lot repeated by the conservation business and a few decision-makers – round twenty thousand plantation initiatives just like Complete’s must be established nearly instantly, masking round 800 million hectares of land.
Complete’s challenge within the Congo could be horrible, but it surely’ll actually not be the final of the monstrous offspring spawned by the conservation and fossil gasoline industries’ marriage of frequent self-interest.
Simon Counsell is the previous director of Rainforest Basis UK, is presently adviser to Survival Worldwide, and researches and writes on nature-based options and colonial conservation.
Initially printed in REDD-Monitor, sixteenth April 2021
