Zorena Jantze
ABOUT 50 young people on Friday marched to the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism to hand in a petition signed by 120 civil society organisations in the country and other states.
Lize Frank, one of the organizing members of the Civil Society Organizing coalition, stated that civil society organisations in Namibia, together with regional and international coalitions and technical experts are deeply concerned about oil and gas exploratory drilling activities in the Kavango Basin.
She noted that most of them neither have been consulted nor given any evidence about how the exploration activities and possible production will affect the lives and human rights of people in Kavango East and West Regions.
“We are therefore respectfully calling on the Government of the Republic of Namibia to suspend all oil and gas drilling and establish an Independent and impartial Public Commission of inquiry to critically examine the current and future oil and gas exploration and extraction in the Kavango East and West regions,” Frank shared.
The demonstrators also demanded that ReconAfrica, the Canadian multinational mining firm carrying out the drilling activities in the Kavango region, submit a new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study, further accusing the mining company of carrying out fracking activities in fragile ecosystems of the Okavango Delta.
“The Environmental Impact Assessments are incomplete and there has been no strategic assessment, yet ReconAfrica has bought the rights from Namibia and Botswana to drill for oil and gas in a vast area of land covering more than 35 000 square kilometres in the environmentally sensitive Kavango basin, which is a protected area under the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Park (KAZA),” Frank shared.
She further challenged the government to start up a new consultative process or be invited to one which will be organized by the coalition of NGOs.
The petition was received by Environmental Commissioner Timoteus Mufeti who assured the young demonstrators that the environment ministry will look into the matter.
