This sweeping expansion follows the launch of a major government auctioning round for 52 new oil blocks, building upon three blocks that had been previously awarded. According to a comprehensive new report titled Forests to Frontlines: Oil Expansion Threats in the DRC, published by Earth Insight in partnership with local and international environmental organizations, these actions directly threaten 64 percent of the country’s pristine forest cover.
Environmental advocates, local community leaders, and international researchers have expressed profound alarm over the trajectory of these policies, noting that they sharply contradict the nation’s stated commitments to biodiversity conservation and international climate goals.
A Critical Ecological Landscape Under Siege
The sheer scale of the DRC’s ecological footprint cannot be overstated. Towering rainforest canopies, extensive winding river systems, and vast carbon-rich peatlands form an ecological mosaic that plays a critical role in regulating the global climate. The country harbors the second-largest tropical rainforest on the planet, acting as a crucial line of defense against accelerating global climate change.
At the heart of this landscape lies the Cuvette Centrale, the largest tropical peatland complex in the world. This massive carbon sink stores roughly 30 gigatons of carbon, making its preservation an international priority. Yet, the newly designated oil blocks overlap significantly with this fragile region, placing the peatlands at extreme risk of industrial degradation.
According to findings detailed in the Earth Insight report, the newly auctioned and existing oil blocks overlap with an estimated 20.5 million acres of officially protected areas, 21.3 million acres of designated Key Biodiversity Areas, and a staggering 165.1 million acres of intact tropical forests. Furthermore, 72 percent of the recently established Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor intersects directly with these oil blocks. This heavy overlap compromises the ecological integrity of the corridor and undermines its credibility as a sustainable development initiative and regional climate solution.
The ecological health of the DRC is deeply intertwined with the health of the planet, playing an outsized role in preserving global biodiversity. Despite widespread national and international opposition, the government has continued to pursue fossil fuel development across these sensitive regions. In 2022, authorities launched a similarly controversial auction for 30 oil and gas blocks, many of which also encroached upon protected areas, peatlands, and Indigenous lands. The latest round of auctions represents a drastic and unprecedented expansion of that earlier initiative, widening the reach of fossil fuel concessions across more than half—53 percent—of the entire country.
Impact on Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples
Beyond the immense environmental and climatic repercussions, the opening of these oil blocks poses a direct threat to millions of people. It is estimated that the regions targeted for auction are home to approximately 39 million Congolese citizens, including numerous forest-based and Indigenous communities whose survival is inextricably linked to the health of the tropical forests and river systems.
These local populations rely on the landscape for their daily livelihoods, nutritional security, cultural identity, and climate resilience. The introduction of heavy industrial activity, exploratory drilling, and infrastructure development threatens to disrupt these traditional ways of life and strip communities of lands holding deep cultural and spiritual significance.
Pascal Mirindi, campaign coordinator for Notre Terre Sans Pétrole, highlighted the profound disconnect between government policy and the welfare of the citizenry. Pointing to the administration’s simultaneous promotion of ecological initiatives like the Kivu-Kinshasa corridor, Mirindi questioned the logic and coherence of the strategy. He emphasized that the Congolese people are the primary sovereign of the land and declared that civil society will not remain silent while the nation’s future is effectively put up for sale.
Local civil society networks, including the Coalition des Organisations de la Société Civile pour le Suivi des Reformes et de Action Publique (CORAP) and Our Land Without Oil, alongside international groups like Rainforest Foundation UK, have united to challenge the licensing round. They argue that oil and gas development within these fragile ecosystems will yield devastating impacts not only on biodiversity and land rights, but also on the collective global effort to mitigate climate change.
Calls for Cancellation and Sustainable Alternatives
The Earth Insight report concludes with a series of urgent recommendations drafted in alignment with the demands of Congolese civil society. Foremost among these proposals is a call for the DRC government and its international partners to cancel the 2025 licensing round entirely and halt all future hydrocarbon expansion within the country’s borders.
Additionally, the report urges that the rights of local communities and Indigenous Peoples be strictly respected, upheld, and integrated into national environmental governance. International donors and financial institutions are being pressed to align their funding and support with the DRC’s preexisting commitments to biodiversity protection, human rights, and climate action.
Researchers and advocates emphasize that meaningful public participation, transparency, and the active involvement of local communities in environmental decision-making and monitoring are essential for preventing ecological degradation. As Anna Bebbington, an Earth Insight research manager, noted, advancing fossil fuel extraction in these sensitive regions risks undermining the country’s long-term potential for genuine sustainable development, leaving the DRC at a critical crossroads between short-term resource exploitation and long-term ecological stability.
