Scenes from the Chad-Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project
Posted: 20-Jun-2002; Updated: 02-Aug-2007
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The 650-mile (900-km) pipeline project stretches from the oil fields of Chad through Cameroon to the Atlantic.
Among the project's ill effects: Poverty and inflation are rising, indigenous people are being displaced or are offered inadequate compensation for destruction of their land and livelihoods. Environmental problems have not been adequately addressed (especially water depletion and pollution). Public health is threatened by pollution and the rise of AIDS and other STDs, malaria and water-borne diseases. In the words of the report, "The public health situation risks becoming catastrophic."
The Lobe Falls, near where the pipeline will enter the Atlantic Ocean and where the oil will be pumped to an offshore loading vessel. A large amount of tanker traffic will imperil the area's unique scenic beauty and may shatter local people's plans for the development of ecotourism.
In the approximately 100 villages traversed by the pipeline route, less than 10 percent have drinking water systems; most villagers rely upon open water systems susceptible to pollution.
With vanishing income sources (cocoa and coffee production, for example) and a lack of capital and know-how to start up small business or invest in trades, people are poorer now than ever. Such impoverishment often engenders the loss of traditional cultural values.
Left: Forest destruction in southern Cameroon. Above: A village near the Doba oil fields, with mango trees essential to local livelihoods.
Logging for export is the driving force of deforestation.
Women carrying water near the oil fields in southern Chad.
Adverse impacts of the project include illegal logging and poaching. Logging is closely tied to the trade in bushmeat (such as gorilla), which could not advance without transport provided by logging trucks.
A youth in Doba, where classes have been shut down because teachers and students have abandoned schools to seek work with the oil consortium.
Photos:
Korinna Horta;
Forest Peoples Programme;
Peter Black (map)
Links
- Rhetoric and Reality: Human Rights and the World Bank (From the March 2002 Harvard Human Rights Journal)
- Click here for more on the World Bank and on the Chad-Cameroon project
- The World Bank: Chad-Cameron Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project - Project overview, documents, video and photo galleries and other resources on the World Bank Web site.
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