OIL EXPLOITATION AT VIRUNGA PARK AS A THREAT TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND TO ENDANGERED ANIMAL SPECIES

Abstract

This article aims at addressing the impasse created by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)1 when it granted to Soco, an English multinational company, the permit to exploit oil and start drilling inside the Virunga National Park in the province of North Kivu, Ituri area, which is protected by UNESCO as a Heritage of Humanity and recognized worldwide as the sanctuary of the mountain gorillas, okapis and several other endangered animals or animal species. The article is inspired in the international mobilization promoted by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Global Witness, World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) and by other national and international human and animal rights movements, as well as by Ituri’s civil society. What is the future of Virunga Park in face of the economic development from oil exploitation to benefit poor riparian populations praised by the Central Government and the sustainable development based on the preservation and conservation of the Park recommended by the non-governmental organizations and the movements listed above? Considering the arguments of the Government in favor of economic development to fight the poverty and misery of the riparian populations, in one hand, and the UN’s opposite positioning through UNESCO, NGOs and the civil society, on the other hand, the dialectic method is going to be used by means of a descriptive research founded on a bibliographic survey.