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Six billion barrels of oil are believed to lie under Lake Albert in Uganda and discussions on how to extract this have been taking place for years. Now, China and France have signed an agreement to build a 1500-kilometre pipeline from landlocked Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga, on the Indian Ocean.聽

Diana Nabimura, senior communications officer with the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (a non-profit group that advocates for the environment) outlines the environmental concerns about the project. She says the oil will be need to be heated, owing to the Ugandan oil's waxy consistency, and will have a significant environmental footprint. It will pass through the Albertine Greben area and the Murchison National Park - "one of Africa's most bio-diverse and econsentitive areas" - and Lake Victoria, which according to estimates, up to 40 million people rely on for their livelihoods and water.

She says that any leak or pollution will have devastating consequences. She believes that threats posed to the environment and the fact that the communities who have lost their land due to compulsory land purchases will struggle to replace it, outweigh the economic benefits. "If you look at Nigeria and Angola, other African oil-producing nations, you find that communities, particularly those that host the oil producing resource, are impoverished."

Photo: An African leopard in the Murchion National Park in Uganda Credit: Getty Images

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