Environmental Watchdog Exposes Massive Oil Development Inside Uganda’s Protected Wildlife Park
Shocking new satellite analysis has revealed that TotalEnergies’ controversial oil project in Uganda has significantly expanded operations within a protected national park and near critical wetlands, despite years of environmental opposition. The French multinational’s Tilenga oil field development, which feeds into Africa’s longest heated oil pipeline, has cleared 630 square kilometers of vegetation and built 38 kilometers of roads inside Murchison Falls National Park.
The damaging development threatens endangered species including Rothschild giraffes, African bush elephants, and Ugandan kob antelopes in Uganda’s largest protected area. Most alarmingly, one drilling site cleared in 2025 sits directly on the border of the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System, a globally recognized Ramsar site crucial for waterbirds and local fishing communities.
U.S.-based environmental watchdog Earth Insight’s analysis shows that 39% of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is near completion as of June 2025, with the 1,443-kilometer pipeline set to carry oil from Uganda to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port. The organization identified nine drilling sites carved out within the national park boundaries, raising serious concerns about oil spill risks to both biodiversity and local livelihoods.
“Civil society and people who care about biodiversity have asked Total to reconsider drilling oil in the park in order to protect nature and protect people’s livelihoods. But the company has refused to do so and is going ahead,” said Diana Nabiruma from the Africa Institute for Energy Governance, a longtime critic of the project.
TotalEnergies has not responded to requests for comment, and the company’s other regional projects have previously faced accusations of hydrocarbon pollution.
Source: news.mongabay.com
