CSF Alum fights an international oil company and wins

by Ephrem Balole, ICCN-PNVi, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2005 International Course Alum

This is a story about a powerless park facing off with a powerful oil company…and winning, at least for now. Virunga is the oldest park in Africa, covers the most diverse landscape of any park in the world, and is home to approximately 200 of the last 790 mountain gorillas. Militia groups roam the park, poaching has depleted the wildlife, local population regularly participate in land invasions, and forests have been destroyed for the illegal charcoal trade. In the last 15 years, 122 rangers have been killed protecting the park. In 2010, British-based SOCO Oil won a concession for oil exploration in the park, even though a Congolese law makes it illegal to carry out economic activity inside a park.

I worked with a team to stop SOCO’s plans, working under very sensitive conditions, trapped in the middle between government and oil. The economic tools we used included: an analysis of the Costs and Benefits of oil exploration versus nature conservation; an economic valuation of natural assets; an analysis of opportunity costs, by showing what the park had already achieved, including building nine schools and a health center, created jobs, rehabilitated the park, increased tourism by 300%, and was building a hydro-electric dam, among many other improvements. Our contributions far out-weighed what the oil company was offering the local communities.

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