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The amount of intact forest in Congo Brazzaville that overlaps with oil blocks, according to new analysis.
Earth Insight, an advocacy group, used World Bank data to map how global forests are under threat from extractive industries. It found that Congo Brazzaville, the country with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the Congo Basin, has the highest industrial overlap in the sub-region with around 20% of the country’s intact forests also under mining concessions.
The government is currently in the process of opening up the country’s most biodiverse national park, Conkouati-Douli, to oil drilling, the report pointed out, arguing that there was “still time for this trajectory to shift.”
Tyson Miller, Earth Insight’s executive director, said: “Sovereign debt and natural resource extractivism often work hand in hand.”
