8/31/2023 0 Comments Virunga mountain![]() ![]() ![]() But after a decade of hard work that laid the groundwork for a vision combining conservation and sustainable development, the stakes seem higher than ever.įlying above the Rwindi plain in the park’s tiny Bat Hawk aircraft, the progress made in just a decade is breathtaking to see. Virunga, a world heritage site, is protected by a Unesco convention that forbids extractive activities within its boundaries.īack then, the park was only beginning to rebuild after two regional wars that had upended every aspect of life in DRC. ![]() Mukura, with several other activists, had played a key role in fending off Soco’s illegal plans – mobilising local communities to denounce the company’s lack of free, prior and informed consent process and its violation of international law. It’s exhausting.’ Photograph: Arlette Bashizi/The Guardian Josué Mukura, who represents fishers living around Lake Edward: ‘The M23, the oil … we feel it’s a never-ending battle. It’s exhausting,” says Josué Mukura, the secretary-general of the Federation of of Individual Fishermen of Lake Edward, which represents communities around the lake at the centre of Virunga, where Soco concentrated its exploration. The M23, the oil … we feel like it’s a never-ending battle. “Everything here, you think it is over, but it begins again. That battle had seemed to have been won by conservationists after Soco International, a British oil company that had bought exploratory rights for Block V in 2010, abandoned the project in 2014 after an international campaign and huge divestment from some of its biggest shareholders, including the Church of England. To compound the feeling of déjà-vu, the DRC government announced in July that it is auctioning 30 oil and gas exploration blocks spanning vast areas of the Congo Basin rainforest, including Block IV and V, which overlap the national park. Photograph: Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images Hundreds of people who fled the advance of the M23 rebels wait for food distribution at an informal camp near Goma. ![]()
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