This is the worst place in the world to look for oil!

Our insatiable thirst for oil… is what is causing the ongoing anthropogenic global warming. That already seems enough. But in a forest in the Congo, it could have even more direct and disastrous consequences.

Before being a country, the Congo is a river. A river nearly 5,000 kilometers long which crosses Central Africa. Its basin is home to one of the largest tropical forests in the world: 286 million hectares. A magnificent reserve of biodiversity. But also a colossal carbon sink and an important source of food for some 60 million human beings. A ecosystem that it seems more important than ever to preserve.

The problem is that the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo got it into its head that it would hide under its tropical forestup to 16 billion barrels of oil. It is rumored that he would have auctioned exploratory oil drilling rights over a forest area – and beyond – of nearly 25 million hectares. This is Simon Lewis, a professor ofUniversity College London and the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) which denounces it.

According to his estimates, on no less than a million hectares put up for auction there is neither more nor less than the largest bog tropical in the world. An incredibly rich and preserved ecosystem because it has been extremely difficult to access until now and which stores colossal quantities of carbon. The equivalent of three years of our emissions greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In this region in particular, oil exploration would mark the death of a natural sanctuary for wildlife. It would be synonymous withtrees cut over the thousands of kilometers to transport the material and then pave the way for poachers and illegal loggers.

A risk for the environment and for people

All this even though we don’t know if there really is a interesting deposit of exploitable oil under the Congo rainforest. The damage would be done. Irreversibly done. The risk of deforestation total would be major. Peatlands could release nearly 6 billion tons of carbon. A disaster !

Not commensurate, however, with what could happen if oil really had to end up being mined from under the Congo rainforest. Not to mention the impact on the climate of the uses to be made of it. Because bringing oil to the surface is not without consequences. Once again, boreholes are particularly damaging to peatlands. Their waste could pollute large areas, undermining their biodiversity and the resources on which local populations depend. According to Simon Lewis, the operation could even completely destabilize the country already weakened by an armed conflict in the east.

But is there another way out? Yes, according to the expert. Notably by working to make the maintenance of the rainforest profitable. By paying local people in exchange for agreements to continue protecting the forest. A track that could even finance a certain development without going through the destruction of the environment. Already, on the occasion of the 26^e United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the Central African Forest Initiative, an international group of donors, has signed a $500 million deal with Congo to protect its forests and peatlands. An agreement that would no longer make sense if the auction was confirmed…