tectonic plates that make up its thin surface. The African continent is being torn apart. About 20 million years ago, a huge crack was formed.
mountains rose up on either side of the crack, with Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro on the eastern part of the 
rift valley, and the Rwenzori Mountains on the west. In between, where the earth sank, 
lakes were formed. Examples include Lake Tanganyika, one of the deepest in the world, as well as Lake Edward and Lake Albert.
Lake Albert lies treasure – plant and animal remains that sank to the bottom thousands of years ago. The Rift Valley, as researchers call the trench, enabled an easy transformation of the organic remains into oil and gas. All it took was pressure, time and temperatures of between 80 to 120 degrees. At the edges of the trench, the gas and oil then made their way back toward the earth’s surface until they encountered impermeable rock and could go no further.
exploration areas in 2006, and Heritage Oil also owned shares. Tullow paid off Heritage, selling two-thirds of its shares to France’s Total and China’s China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). In 2020, Total bought the remaining Tullow shares. 56.67 percent of the areas are now owned by Total, 15 percent by Uganda National Oil and 28.33 by CNOOC. Total operates the 
Tilenga production area and CNOOC is in charge of Kingfisher.
EACOP pipeline. The oil here, however, is viscous and would require pumping stations every few hundred kilometres to ensure that it doesn’t stop. That’s why the world’s longest heated crude oil pipeline is being built with the nearest oil terminal 1443 kilometres away in Tanga, Tanzania.There are reasons why oil companies have chosen Uganda. The country, with its 41 million inhabitants, is one of the more stable in the region. In the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, warlords and Ebola outbreaks have driven an estimated four million people to flee, and Uganda continues to absorb most of them. Rwanda is finally at peace after the genocide, but only because a questionable police state enforces it.
Uganda itself has suffered from civil wars and massacres since 1970; in the 1970s alone, dictator Idi Amin killed 300,000 opposition members and civil war raged in the north until the 2000s. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has been in office since 1986 and is determined to stay there with all his might.
The day before his last re-election in January 2021, the government blocked all important social media platforms. Opposition candidate Bobi Wine was arrested several times, and international election observers reported serious shortcomings. Compared to South Sudan and Congo next door, the country is nevertheless considered stable by many investors. The economy has been growing for several years - but at a very low level.
According to the UN Development Index, Uganda ranks 159 out of 189, the gross domestic product is just 822 dollars per capita, and almost 70 percent work in agriculture. Climate change is increasingly threatening harvests. In 2019, only 48 percent of children had their own blanket to sleep with.
The president blames the people themselves for their poverty. In several speeches, he calls them lazy and dishonest.
However, he assures the very same people that the oil will help the country to prosper. The state owns 15 percent of the project through the newly created Uganda National Oil Company. According to a spokeswoman, the Petrol Authority of Uganda (PAU) expects annual oil profits of 1.4 to 2.9 billion euros. By comparison, the total state budget of Uganda 20/21 was 11.8 billion euros. In addition, there would be tax revenues and positive effects for other industries, she says. One hundred and sixty thousand jobs are expected to be created and a small refinery will process 60,000 barrels per day to cover national needs. That’s a miniscule amount compared to the 2.1 million barrels consumed in Germany per day. But according to the spokeswoman, the 60,000 barrels will cover the entire demand for paraffin, diesel and petrol in Uganda in the future. It’s easy for the president to tout the pipeline as an opportunity.
But there is a problem- the area is not vacant. There are people living there, mostly from agriculture, as well as some very rare animals.
What does it mean to build oil production from scratch in such an area? Satellite images, 3D models of the area and precise data of the planned infrastructure provide an idea.
Tilenga, named after a local antelope, and Kingfisher, named after a rare bird. Tilenga is operated by TotalEnergies and will soon output an estimated 190,000 barrels per day. Kingfisher is under development by CNOOC and is scheduled to produce 40,000 barrels a day.
workers’ camp huts and long improvised 
airstrip. Oil wells are being drilled into some of the already levelled areas. The oil is then pumped through infield pipelines to the Central Processing Facility (CPF), where it is separated from impurities and gases, and from the water used to squeeze it out of the ground. A feeder pipeline brings the oil to the industrial area, where it is collected.national refinery is also being built in the industrial area. From here, a second 95-kilometre pipeline will transport refined fuel to a storage terminal near the capital Kampala. From the industrial area, the oil is sent at walking pace on its 1443-kilometre journey and always kept at between 50 to 70 degrees. A national refinery is also being built in the industrial area. From here, a second 95-kilometre pipeline will transport refined fuel to a storage terminal near the capital Kampala.</div></div>
</div>airport is being built, more modern than the capital’s Entebbe airport. This should make it easier to bring in materials and skilled workers. The government is building it with the Swiss construction company SBI International Holdings and the British Colas UK. The runway already exists. It is three and a half kilometres long and stable enough for the world’s largest cargo planes. 
Satellite images over time show how forests and farmers’ fields have been bulldozed for the airport. Entire villages have been relocated. In the middle of it all, an international airport is being built, more modern than the capital’s Entebbe airport. This should make it easier to bring in materials and skilled workers. The government is building it with the Swiss construction company SBI International Holdings and the British Colas UK. The runway already exists. It is three and a half kilometres long and stable enough for the world’s largest cargo planes. Satellite images over time show how forests and farmers’ fields have been bulldozed for the airport. Entire villages have been relocated.drill well pads, the oil is to be pumped underground through infield pipelines to the CPF. There, it will be pumped through a feeder pipeline to the beginning of the EACOP.
Murchison Falls National Park.Murchison Falls was named after the chairman of the British Royal Geographical Society, just as many places in East Africa are named after former conquerors and colonial rulers. In 1952, the rulers designated the area as Uganda’s first national park. Today it covers more than 3800 square kilometres.
The fact that it is one of the country’s most important tourist attractions is not only due to its mighty waterfalls, but also to its biodiversity. More than 2700 African elephants, lions, leopards, monkeys, giraffes, hippos and antelopes live here - 76 different mammal species in total. This evolving landscape of the Nile, with its savannas, trees and wetlands, is also home to 451 bird species. Many of them are considered endangered.
In the midst of buffalo herds, flocks of birds and gymnastic monkeys, roads are now being widened. Huge construction machines plough the landscape.
a bridge was built in the national park. Previously, vehicles could only cross here with a small ferry.
Critical Oil Roads to facilitate the project, many on credit. China, for example, is financing three.Budongo Forest, home to one of the largest groups of chimpanzees in the world. A road also runs through the foothills of this forest.
Nature and landscape conservation areas skirt the entire pipeline. Some of them are Ramsar protected sites. These are wetlands of international importance, habitats for waterfowl and wading birds, for example. And, within a short distance of the end of the pipeline where the oil is shipped, lies a coral reef.
people are displaced and either resettled or compensated. One of them is Jelousy Mugisha. He claims the compensation offered was not fair, he was given far too little for his house. Mugisha is still fighting in court today. You can read accounts from him and other people who were displaced in this report.Project Affected Persons (PAPs). According to international rules, as Total confirmed when asked, a PAP can be an entire household. Government and company documents show 25,665 PAPs in the various regions. The World Bank, when asked, also says that PAPs in this case are probably just the heads of households and businesses. Several NGOs estimate the number of affected individuals to be between 80,000 to 116,000 people, rather than 25,665.Along tectonic rifts, tension regularly results in discharges at the many fractures from plate displacements. Since 2002, there have been dozens of 
earthquakes reaching 4.5 and above on the Richter scale. The largely underground oil pipeline is therefore being reinforced in some places. Sensors are supposed to detect leaks immediately. The Petroleum Authority of Uganda cites possible leaks as the greatest risk that oil activities pose to the country. All technical measures have therefore been taken to minimise the risk. In the event that leaks do occur, it is important as a country to develop contingency plans, laws and measures.
In addition to the risk of earthquakes, there are increasingly frequent heavy rains that trigger floods and landslides – extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis. And this is mainly driven by the burning of fossil fuels.
An important fact is being ignored in European climate debates about electric cars and green energy: global oil consumption is rising. The growing middle class in China is buying up cars, as are those in India and some African countries.
In Germany, more and more people may be switching to public or electric cars, but the old combustion engine cars are still being sold, especially to Africa. Here, they continue to drive them for years, with the high petrol consumption of yesteryear. The sales figures for new German cars have also risen instead of falling in recent decades. These cars are simply no longer driven in Germany.
Unsurprisingly, most oil companies predict that oil consumption will rise or remain at the same level in the next ten years. Russia, one of Europe’s largest oil suppliers until recently, is reorganising supply chains since the invasion of Ukraine. This increases the pressure to open up new production areas.
The oil deposit at Lake Albert is actually small when compared to the oil fields found in Saudi Arabia, Norway or the USA. In addition, one can never say exactly whether as much of the deposits can really be extracted as predicted. As soon as one looks at the map, it becomes clear why the EACOP mega-project could be so momentous for Uganda, as well as for the African continent and even the whole world.
EACOP, which costs billions, is a bit like a motorway connection. Once the pipeline is in place, it becomes cheaper to extract more oil nearby. And no matter who is producing, everyone will have to pay a fee to the owner- in this case Total and to a lesser extent CNOOC, Uganda and Tanzania. It is clear that there are other oil deposits around Lake Albert – in the Virunga National Park in Rwanda, for example, which is known for its population of gorillas. Or in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda’s President Museveni has already expressed his wish to connect neighbouring countries to the pipeline.oil and gas exploration in Africa. Only a few are already 
in operation.. The rest are neatly divided in perfectly straight lines. Some are owned by small companies and others already bought by the big ones. The exploration, buyouts, distribution battles and extraction deals continue. Some affect the last green oases on the planet and change the lives of defenceless people whose land is being taken away in exchange for a pittance.Sattelite images: Sentinel-2 cloudless - https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2020)
Sattelite images of the airport: Image Landsat / Copernicus und Sentinel-2 via Google Earth Pro and Google Earth Engine
Tectonic Plates: Peter Bird „Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 4(3), 1027“ via Hugo Ahlenius/Nordpil
Pipeline and infrastructure: Petroleum Authority of Uganda
Tectonic fault lines: British Geological Survey via data.gov.uk
Oil exploration and production areas: oilmap.xyz via Map for Environment
Oil and gas fields: Energy Data Exchange’s Global Oil and Gas Features Database via ArcGIS
Project Affected People: Resettlement Action Plan EACOP Uganda, Resettlement Action Plan EACOP Tansania, Resettlement Action Plan Tilenga, Resettlement Action Plan Kingfisher, Resettlement Action Plan Kabaale
Protected areas: UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre’s World Databank on Protected Areas
Earthquakes: Earthquake Calalog/USGS
This article is part of a year-long research project on the consequences of climate change in severely affected regions of Africa. The main focus is on female climate activists who are trying to highlight problems and find solutions on the ground.
The global climate movement is shaped by young women. In this country, activists like Greta Thunberg from Sweden are in the foreground - or Luisa Neubauer, the German face of “Fridays for Future”. Their female campaigners from Africa are often overlooked, yet their countries are already much more affected by the climate crisis.
Through the project A Female Fight for the Future, the Tagesspiegel accompanies female climate activists in African countries. We look at their projects to fight climate change on the ground, but also at their attempts to put pressure on international politics through global networks. The project also visualizes the effects climate change already has on African regions – and the driving ecological change.
All previous articles from the series can be found on the project page.
The research project is funded by the European Journalism Centre under the European Development Journalism Grants Programme. This programme is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
