This, from this morning’s Times, provides a stark warning that capitalism most certainly is not compatible with life on Earth
Read it and weep
Jim Carroll

RAINFOREST UNDER THREAT FROM OIL DEAL
Democratic Republic of Congo Jane Flanagan Cape Town
The disputed president of the Demo¬cratic Republic of Congo has signed over the rights to drill for oil in Africa’s largest rainforest to a consortium with links to the Channel Islands.
The $3 million deal, the details of which have not been made public, risks violence in one of the most lawless re¬gions of the country.
One of three oil prospecting conces¬sions allocated to Compagnies Miniè¬res Congolaise (Comico) encroaches on the Salonga National Park, the most remote nature reserve on earth and home to several endangered species, including the bonobo, one of the great apes. There are fears that drilling in Sal¬onga, a 14,000 sq m Unesco world heri¬tage site, would put its delicate eco-sys- tem at risk and make conflict more like¬ly in the absence of effective policing.
President Kabila, who flouted the constitution when he refused to stand down at the end of his second term in 2016, rubber-stamped the deal with Comico — one of whose main stake¬holders is registered in Guernsey — in February, 11 years after the rights were awarded. His government is obliged to publish details but is yet to do so, ac-cording to Global Witness, an anti¬corruption watchdog based in London.
Exploration licences have also been signed for a fifth of the Virunga National Park, on the DRC’s eastern border. Militia groups fight for the park’s resources and, recently, oil pros¬pecting concessions. Two British doc¬tors were kidnapped there this month.
The DRC produces about 22,500 barrels of oil a day, but industry analysts speculate that it could hold 6 per cent of Africa’s oil reserves.
Both parks’ protected status and boundaries will have to be amended before any drilling can go ahead. Aimé Ngoy Mukena, the DRC’s oil minister, said the law made provision for excep¬tions for agreements between the gov¬ernment and oil companies if an area “presents an economic interest”.
No exploration licences have been awarded in the past eight years, so the revival of old deals has led to specula¬tion that Mr Kabila is keen to amass funds before the overdue elections he has pledged to stage in December.
The World Wildlife Fund, the co¬manager of Salonga, expressed its “great astonishment and disappoint¬ment” at the government’s decision, warning that oil exploration “repre¬sents a real danger for the exceptional flora and fauna of this ecosystem”.
Jean-Luc Blakey, who investigated the deal for Global Witness, said: “Un¬esco world heritage sites make up a tiny fraction of the earth’s surface, yet even these few precious areas are being ex¬posed to the risks posed by oil explora¬tion and exploitation.”

Behind the story
Centrale Oil and Gas, registered in Guernsey, has a 40 per cent stake in Comico, the shares of which are held by Adonis Pouroulis, the South African diamond magnate, and his
family (Jane Flanagan writes). Mr Pouroulis also owns one share in Comico directly.
Centrale Oil & Gas bought into Comico in 2010. According to Global Witness, Comico was formed in 2006 by ïdalécio de Oliveira, of Portugal,
who held a 25 per cent personal stake and 45 per cent via one of his bases in the British Virgin Islands, and Montfort Konzi, a former Congolese politician with 30 per cent. Other offshore entities bought into Comico later.