Frack Free Namibia: Advocating for the Most Marginalized as Government Welcomes Canadian Oil and Gas Exploration in the Kavango Regions
By Frack Free Namibia
In September 2020, the world learned about planned oil and gas explorations in the Kavango regions of Namibia, home to the biodiversity-rich Okavango River Basin which includes Botswana’s Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Environmental activists, local communities, NGOs, and even members of the Namibian cabinet were not privy to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process that was completed and signed off by the Ministry of Mines and Energy in 2019. Similar secret negotiations took place in Botswana, where the Canadian oil company Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica) bought an exploration license bordering the Namibian license areas including Tsodilo Hills, another UNESCO World Heritage Site adjacent to the Okavango Delta. In total, ReconAfrica was granted a 13,200 square-mile license area, 70 percent of which is in Namibia and 30 percent in Botswana.
Kavango River, Namibia, upstream from the Okavango Delta, Botswana
The Kavango regions are Namibia’s poorest, with approximately 200,000 inhabitants (from a total population of 2,646,000 nationwide) who mainly derive their livelihood from crop and livestock farming as their primary agricultural activities. Mahangu (pearl millet) is the dominant crop, planted on about 95 percent of all cultivated land and a staple of the Namibian diet. About two-thirds (63 percent) of all rural households report farming as their main source of income.
ReconAfrica was promising investors riches from a supposed massive unconventional (fracking) oil and gas development in Namibia and Botswana. In September 2019, the company stated that their long-term plans included, “100s of wells and modern frac stimulations.” However, after a Namibian newspaper broke the story of possible fracking, the Minister of Mines and Energy issued a statement denying that fracking was planned. ReconAfrica has also been scrubbing their website, removing any mention of fracking. The company sailed through the EIA process for exploratory boreholes drilling on communal and conservation lands with little community engagement, and no critical list of Interested and Affected Parties, in contravention of Namibia’s Environmental Management Act 7 of 2007.
A 1996 amendment to the Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1975 devolved rights to communities over natural resources, which includes wildlife, and enabled them to set up and operate tourism enterprises through communal conservancies. Communal conservancies are self-governing, democratic entities, run by their members, with fixed boundaries that have been agreed upon with adjacent conservancies, communities, or landowners. The early, pioneer conservancies established the model for economic survival and growth in harsh rural settings. As legal entities with wildlife utilization plans, residents on communal land who had hunted game before independence and were treated as poachers, were allowed to hunt freely in the conservancies. To date, there are 86 in total, covering almost 20 percent of Namibia’s territory. Community forests are like conservancies, and they often overlap because they control grazing and natural resource extraction rights in forest areas.
ReconAfrica’s exploration area directly impacts the ancestral lands of San First Nations Indigenous groups, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (one of the world’s largest protected areas), six community conservancies, and thirteen community forests. These are home to wildlife corridors where elephants and other wildlife species migrate. Botswana has the world’s largest cross-border population of approximately 130,000 savanna elephants and Namibia is home to around 24,000 individuals. There has been an increase in human-wildlife conflict since exploratory drilling began, with elephants moving closer to homesteads and crop fields.
ReconAfrica drill rig
Normally, a high-impact industrial development affecting a rural area would include in its EIA the voices of local and Indigenous communities, experts, scientists, and local, regional, and international organizations working in the region. There was so little engagement that no objections or concerns were raised or published in the final EIA that led to the Environmental Clearance Certificate for drilling being issued.
In 2021, ReconAfrica rolled out a second EIA process to map out how large a prospective oil and gas reserve could be. This time interested and affected parties registered in significant numbers. Frack Free Namibia drafted submissions and provided support to residents, ensuring that letters were transported from their villages to the Kavango East Communal Land Board. The registered feedback voiced serious concerns with the environmental and social impacts of the seismic survey and the drilling, water safety, and impacts on water wells in this arid region where water (not oil) is gold.
By not disposing of its waste drilling fluids according to international industry standards, ReconAfrica is also in contravention of Canadian regulations for disposing of naturally occurring radioactive material, which include double-lined pits and a leak detection system. The company is “donating” its toxic waste drilling fluids to local farmers after convincing them that it is a good fertilizer for their crops. Community members in one of the villages surrounding ReconAfrica’s drill sites reported that a community borehole from which they source clean drinking water started smelling like “fabric softener.” Activists report that residents living near drill sites stated that noise pollution is relentless and continues day and night.
ReconAfrica exploits COVID-19 pandemic, Namibian government pursues and promotes extractive industries
In July 2021, at a time when Namibia had the highest rates of COVID-19 infections worldwide, the government granted ReconAfrica an environmental clearance for 2D seismic surveys. This was despite widespread public objection to the environmental and social impacts of the seismic surveys and drilling, and concerns for water safety and impacts on water wells in this arid region where the population depends on groundwater.
The COVID pandemic had a devastating effect on Frack Free Namibia’s ability to support our partners in the field at a critical point in the company’s expansion. In-person consultations and community outreach were halted by recurring waves of COVID and lockdown regulations prohibiting social gatherings. While local activists were grounded by travel restrictions, the Namibian government granted ReconAfrica essential permits to continue extractive activities on local farms and in community conservancies without free, prior, and informed consent. The company capitalized on the COVID crisis to secure access to more tracts of land. They simultaneously bulldozed “firebreaks” in clear violation of their Environmental Clearance Certificate and blatantly refused to adhere to Namibia’s strict environmental protection laws. And, even before the 2D Seismic ECC was issued to them on July 2, 2021, the company publicly announced its intentions to carve 22.5 kilometers of new seismic cutlines (5 percent of their 450 kilometer, 2D seismic survey) through virgin Kavango forest.
Citing the global and national economic crisis, rapidly increasing unemployment, and COVID-related setbacks to the country’s development agenda, the government has aggressively pursued and promoted extractive industries as the solution to our economic woes. However, Namibia has been ranked as the most unequal nation according to the World Bank’s Gini Index for years before COVID and the current global economic crisis. In 2022, offshore oil drilling activities were launched by the Namibian government (a 10 percent shareholder) in partnership with Shell (45 percent) and Qatar Petroleum (45 percent). The world’s first ocean floor phosphate mining operation, the Sandpiper Project, is also in the final approval stages despite serious concerns that it could cause irreparable harm to the country’s world-renowned marine biodiversity. Russian-owned, Namibia-registered Headsprings Investments plans to conduct leaching operations for uranium in the Stampriet Aquifer, which is recognized by UNESCO as the prime source of quality water for a huge area of the Kalahari that includes Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. This project is a grave threat to the water supply in an area where fresh produce is cultivated, and livestock rearing is a multigenerational means for survival.
Namibian peoples and lands suffer climate impacts, ongoing effects of past colonial rule
Namibia is one of the largest and driest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and faces persistent droughts, unpredictable and variable rainfall patterns, extreme temperatures, and water scarcity. This impacts agriculture (crops, livestock, and fish), food security, water management, and public health, with the most at-risk populations being women and children.
The negative environmental effects of mining include groundwater contamination and acid mine drainage, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that impact climate patterns, contributing to drier climate spells, higher temperatures, and rising health risks. ReconAfrica and all extractive companies should be, but are not being, held accountable for the damage that they are inflicting upon residents, the environment, and our wildlife. Instead of expanding activities that contribute to environmental degradation and the climate crisis, the government should be focused on investing in export-ready, sustainable renewable energy sources.
After more than a century of colonial rule, Namibia gained its independence in 1990 and enshrined constitutional protections against discrimination based on tribal or ethnic identity. While those provisions are designed to protect Indigenous groups, they do not guarantee Indigenous rights, especially free, prior, and informed consent. This absence of enforcement mechanisms compounds centuries of land theft and forced removals that sent San communities into smaller areas called corridors. Many now live in conservancies that were established to give communities control over the land they occupy and use. They rely upon subsistence farming for survival, or they leave their communities to seek employment in towns and cities.
Frack Free Namibia educates, advocates, and acts
Since ReconAfrica launched drilling operations in Namibia, the government has promoted their activities as a solution to poverty in the Kavango regions. Local activists who challenge this position and publicize the illegal acts committed by the company with the government’s approval are accused of representing foreign interests and working against the promised development returns that have yet to materialize. This year, our partners have been illegally detained for holding a meeting with partners from Botswana and had their laptops and mobile phones confiscated, Frack Free Namibia chat groups have been infiltrated by ReconAfrica operatives, and our Facebook Community and other social media accounts have been the ongoing target of the company’s supporters and investors.
First protest action in Windhoek; handover of letter to UNESCO which led to the removal of Tsodilo Hills from the prospecting area in Botswana
Frack Free Namibia recognizes that the most marginalized citizens are paying the highest cost for oil and gas exploration in our country. We are committed to promoting sustainable livelihoods projects in the Kavango regions to mitigate the severe food insecurity faced by residents of the affected and Indigenous communities. In November 2021, we launched the Tukununge Women’s Small-Scale Farming Initiative to support single mother, women farmers who are facing insurmountable obstacles to economic stability. We plan to launch the Khwe San Women’s Farming Project in Omega One, a pilot program that will transition Khwe San small-scale women farmers into entrepreneurs while mitigating climate change-driven food insecurity and socioeconomic disparities in surrounding Khwe San communities. Other villages in the Kavangos view this activity as a viable alternative to oil and gas and have requested Frack Free Namibia’s assistance with establishing similar projects for their communities.
The Namibian government continues to facilitate ReconAfrica’s oil and gas explorations despite its devastating effects on the livelihoods and residents of Kavango communities, dispossessing them of ancestral and communal land and causing irreparable damage to the Kavango Basin ecosystem. It remains committed to the extractive development model, which offers new sources of revenue and can lead to corruption. The government’s capacity and political will to regulate the adverse environmental impacts resulting from industrial mining, remains weak and ineffectual.
Frack Free Namibia will continue to expand our advocacy addressing the current and future impact of ReconAfrica’s violations of Namibia’s environmental laws on already scarce water supplies, citizens, and our nation’s wildlife. We hope to expand our pool of allies worldwide, including Canada, where more citizens and policymakers should be aware of the damage being inflicted upon Namibia’s citizens by a privately held Canadian company.
Indigenous walk to protest against ReconAfrica: San leaders and allies walked from Knysna to Cape Town to hand over a petition to the Namibian High Commissioner
Indigenous walk to protest against ReconAfrica: San leaders and allies walked from Knysna to Cape Town to hand over a petition to the Namibian High Commissioner
Frack Free Namibia works to oppose oil and gas exploration in the Okavango Basin, and extractive activities nationwide, and to collaborate on local solutions that bring about environmental and socio-economic justice for affected Indigenous peoples and local communities. Please contact us via direct message on any of our social media platforms for additional information, or email us to make a donation: frackfreenamibia@gmail.com.
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