Massive Drilling Project Could Put Africa’s Okavango Delta at Risk

Activists point to potential impacts of oil exploration on UNESCO World Heritage Site, lack of consultation with local Indigenous communities.

The Okavango Delta is teaming with life. It supports well-known species like cheetahs, rhinoceros, and lions, alongside wild dogs, endangered vultures, and more. It remains largely untransformed by humans, a rarity in today’s world, yet its watershed provides water to some 1 million people. It is also among the world’s few large inland delta systems that do not connect to the sea. For these reasons and more, the Okavango is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

​Canadian company ReconAfrica, which has a license to explore for oil across some 13,600 square miles in Namibia and Botswana, has begun exploratory activities upstream of the Okavango Delta. Photo by Alessandro / Flickr.

But this unique and stunning ecosystem now faces the distinct threat of human interference in the form of oil and gas exploration. Canadian company ReconAfrica, which has a license to explore for oil across some 13,600 square miles in Namibia and Botswana, began exploratory activities upstream of the delta, in Namibia’s Kavango Basin, in late 2020. Currently, the company is drilling several test wells there. If those wells show there’s as much oil as the company thinks there is — the basin is estimated to hold up to 120 billion barrels of oil — Recon’s activities are expected to expand significantly. The company hopes to drill hundreds of wells across land that overlaps with several protected areas and is home to 200,000 people, including the Indigenous San.

Critics have expressed grave concern about the environmental impacts of the project. Largescale oil extraction in the region will require construction of rigs, roads, and pipelines across an area larger than Belgium, all of which will fragment important wildlife habitat and disrupt wildlife migration corridors. ReconAfrica may also utilize fracking technologies, that require large amounts of water, create large quantities of wastewater, and has been linked to negative impacts on public health.

“The planned oil drilling activities pose great liability to the lives supported by the water resources,” says San activist Gakemotho Satau of the Kuru Family of Organization, which represents the voices of the San people. Satau notes that since Botswana is dry and experiences frequent drought periods, ReconAfrica will inevitably rely on either ground water or the Okavango River for its drilling activities.

Despite the potential for significant environmental impacts, many local communities say they weren’t adequately informed or consulted about the plans. San Chief Kelebetse Keasheta, for example, says his community wasn’t consulted. He says their input should have been included in the Environmental Impact Assessment Reports for the project, noting that the area is sensitive in nature and people living along it depend on it for their livelihood.

“There is no relevant public consultation being conducted so far in Botswana and we are not sure yet what legal documents the authorities issued to ReconAfrica to begin drilling borehole for their seismic survey [in Namibia],” Satau adds.

In response to mounting concern, last summer the southern African nations of Angola, Botswana, and Namibia — which jointly manage the Okavango River Basin — agreed to launch a joint probe into the planned drilling activities. The investigation was led by the Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM), whose mandate is to act as a technical advisor to the three countries on matters relating to conservation.

The Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, supports well-known species like zebras, cheetahs, and rhinoceros, alongside wild dogs, endangered vultures, and more. Photo by Michael Levine-Clark.

It is among the world’s few large inland delta systems that do not connect to the sea. Photo by serena_tang / flickr.

“As an advisory body, when we learned about these planed or ongoing exploration activities the Council felt that it was important that the three countries sit together and jointly discuss what it is that is exactly happening and what adverse impacts might come as a result of this,” OKACOM Executive Secretary Phera Ramoeli told Earth Island Journal, emphasizing the importance of information-sharing between the nations.

Representatives for the three countries met in July 2021. Ramoeli said part of the outcome of the meeting was that the three countries agreed on the need for transboundary environmental impact assessment reports ahead of any further exploration activities. (Exploratory drilling had already begun in Namibia at that point and non-drilling exploratory activities had already begun in Botswana.)

“This should precede any subsequent stage in the exploration work and if at some point during the process, it is discovered that [the activities] are a threat to the basin, [the] countries could make the decision to either suspend or stop these activities or find ways to deal with what might be adverse impacts,” said Ramoeli.

Botswana’s permanent secretary in Ministry of Minerals at the time, Mmetla Masire, notes that Recon’s exploration license does not overlap with Botswana’s two world heritage sites, Tsodilo Hills and Okavango Delta. “The core and the buffer for the World Heritage sites are excluded from prospecting or exploration in line with the requirements of UNESCO World Heritage Convention,” said Masire.

Chief of Unit at UNESCO, Guy Debonnet, said Botswana and Namibia had assured the UNESCO World Heritage Centre that they would not undertake any measures that might directly or indirectly harm the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of any World Heritage properties and that all steps in the project would be subject to impact assessments in line with their national legislations. “They provided assurances that they will keep the World Heritage Centre informed on all future steps,” he said.

For its part, a ReconAfrica spokesperson said the company completed a full and detailed Environmental Impact Assessment for its exploratory drilling in Namibia, which included detailed consultation with local communities and a range of other stakeholders, including the traditional authorities, regarding land use. The spokesperson also emphasized that ReconAfrica was taking measures to minimize the impact of noise and vibration on wildlife, as well as on the local environment.

“We use low-frequency equipment to protect wildlife communications and do not operate at night, when elephants typically communicate, so work does not interfere with wildlife communication or migratory movements, the spokesperson said, adding that in Namibia, where exploratory drilling has commenced, ReconAfrica’s stratigraphic wells are located 260km or more from the Okavango Delta.

While ReconAfrica has emphasized its mitigation measures, its 2019 EIA for Namibia has been harshly criticized by experts, who point to a threadbare assessment of the impacts on plants, animals, people, and water.

Still, exploration activities appear to be proceeding. In a fresh document released in April 2022, the company said it plans to expand its exploratory drilling activities this year with “a multi-well drilling program.”

OKACOM’s Ramoeli said the group recently conducted a fact-finding mission to engage the company on its current activities. “At this stage we are happy with the environmental mitigation measures put in place,” he said.

However, the company has already been found violating its exploratory permits, including by bulldozing protected land. Namibian environmental group Frack Free Namibia and Botswana has written to the Namibian Ministry of Environment Forestry and Tourism to express concern: “Recent feedback from drill sites has shown that the liquid waste has disappeared, due to seepage into the ground and evaporation. None of the liquid waste was removed from the site for appropriate deposal.”

In the May 2022 letter, the group added that “The remaining hazardous solid waste which includes a cocktail of organic compounds, salts, and naturally and occurring radioactive material has been covered over with a layer of sand. Not only is this a breach of the company’s own ESG Environmental Social Governance policy but also constitutes a serious breach of their EIA.”

While the Canadian oil and gas company insists that its planned drilling activities won’t have a negative impact on the environment, activists and local communities do not share the same view. It still remains to be seen what will come of the proposed project, and what footprint it will leave on the landscape.

An earlier version of this article misidentified a PR consultant as the spokesperson for ReconAfrica. That reference has been removed.

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