The controversy-ridden East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) will generate over 34 million tons of carbon emissions annually at peak production, undermining global climate commitments.
The 1,443-kilometre-long pipeline meant to transport Uganda’s new found oil wealth from Lake Albert in the west of the country southwards to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania, locks East Africa into a carbon-intensive future at odds with international climate commitments.
The project is at odds with “global climate imperatives”, and highlights the direct link between local environmental justice and global climate action.
It will have devastating consequences for communities and ecosystems in Uganda and Tanzania, while driving the planetary climate crisis, campaigners led by global anti-fossils campaign group Earth Insight claim.
The project was initiated in 2016, but has faced years of delays, resistance, and scrutiny. It has, over the past two years, been accelerated, allege the campaigners, with infrastructure taking shape along its routes.
This is more so in two key oil fields of Tilenga awarded to TotalEnergies, and Kingfisher awarded to China’s China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). The governments of Uganda and Tanzania are the other shareholders in the $5.6 billion project.
The report, titled Mounting Threats: Mapping What’s at Stake as EACOP Advances, relies on satellite imagery to map the pipeline route. The campaigners allege in it that a network of pipeline routes cut through ecologically critical areas, placing biodiversity under intense pressure and undermining global climate goals
Already some 630 sq km of vegetation has been cleared around the part to pave way for the development of the Tilenga Feeder Pipeline, it claims.
In the study, the activists claim that at least 38 kilometres of roads and nine well pads have been cleared or constructed inside Murchison Falls National Park. The reserve is Uganda’s oldest and largest national park, home to elephants, lions, hippos, and numerous endemic species.
The report, released during the Africa Climate Summit taking place in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, finds that EACOP cuts through 44 protected areas and seven “key biodiversity areas”, threatening critical habitats, endangered species, and ecosystem services that support local communities.
“Despite TotalEnergies’ misleading claim that the project does not cross any Ramsar zones or International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) sites, mapping shows that it runs through 44 protected areas registered in the World Database on Protected Areas. These include national parks, wildlife reserves, and community-managed areas that play a critical role in sustaining species, safeguarding watersheds, and supporting local livelihoods,” the analysis asserts.
It disputes figures on progress issued by project owners asserting that only 39 per cent of EACOP pipeline infrastructure and 22 per cent of the Tilenga feeder pipeline has been constructed, contrary to claims of over 60 per cent completion in the media since June.
The analysis finds that “roads, construction camps, and access routes fragment habitats further and open once-intact landscapes to poaching, logging, and agricultural encroachment. Even as developers promote ambitious biodiversity programmes, the reality on the ground points to immense and escalating threats for people and nature”.
The activists also claim that so far, a total of 30 major insurers and 43 banks have withdrawn support from the project due to its “environmental and social risks”, the latest being the giant US insurer Chubb, which allegedly in April 2025 refused to cover EACOP assets citing policy changes.
Seeing EACOP as an “existential risk to people, nature, and climate”, it contends that as the project advances, the threats to biodiversity, livelihoods, and the climate grow more immediate and severe.
“Spatial analyses make clear that every kilometre of pipeline built carries real consequences for ecosystems, communities, and global climate targets. From Uganda’s oil fields to Tanzania’s coast, the project puts people, irreplaceable species, and critical habitats squarely in the crosshairs,” it found.
“The EACOP represents not only a grave threat to Africa’s protected areas and biodiversity — it is an assault on climate stability and our collective future,” said Florencia Librizzi, programme director, Earth Insight.
Coming at a time when the world should be investing in renewable energy and climate resilience, it was regrettable that billions were being poured into a project that will displace thousands of families, jeopardise water security, and lock in decades of carbon pollution, the official noted.
Leaders gathering at the Africa Climate Summit had a historic choice before them of either standing with their “people and the planet, or with short-sighted extractive projects that are sacrificing both,” she chided.
The fossils crisis extended beyond Uganda, Tanzania and the larger East Africa to Central African countries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Congo, two biodiverse rich countries that also host Africa’s share of global rainforest ecosystems.
In DRC, massive oil exploration projects were threatening forests while in the Republic of Congo’s protected wetlands were under siege, systematically destroying ecosystems that sustain communities and cushion them from effects of climate change.
The government of natural resource rich DRC recently approved agreements for 55 oil blocks covering more than half the country, with the blocks encroaching 8.3 million hectares of protected areas, 8.6 million hectares of key biodiversity areas, and putting at risk livelihoods for 39 million people. In the Republic of Congo, two oil exploration blocks encroach more than half of Conkouati-Douli National Park’s terrestrial area and nearly 90 per cent of its wetlands, threatening the survival of 7,000 residents and endangered species, including 900 Western Lowland gorillas.
“As African leaders gather at this Climate Summit, we are witnessing an unprecedented assault on our continent’s most precious natural heritage,” said Harrison Nnoko, executive president, Ajemalebu Self Help initiative, Cameroon. “We must immediately halt these destructive developments and choose a path that protects Africa’s environmental stewardship and our commitments to future generations,” he added.