losing faith in humanity...

The map shows auctioning off the Congo
red: the 27 advertised concessions.
yellow: the protection zones.

Peatlands and rainforests in the Congo Basin protect the planet by storing carbon. Now, in a giant leap backward for the climate, the Democratic Republic of Congo
is auctioning off vast amounts of land for drilling, including protected areas.

The Congo Basin is second in size only to the Amazon and the green lung
of our planet: It filters more than 1.5 billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year and makes a decisive contribution to climate regulation, slowing down the global warming and preserving the biodiversity.
But beneath this vital jungle lies “black gold“.
The congolese government recently asked the oil multinationals to submit offers for the exploitation of the oil reserves. NGOs consider it a massive catastrophe on all levels - several nature reserves, indigenous tribal areas and the global climate are endangered.

One of the epicentres is the world's largest tropical peatbog,
which is just over the size of England.
Peatbogs are one of the largest Co2 reservoirs on earth. The protected areas bind 30 billion tons of Co2. This corresponds to the amount that we emit worldwide within 3 years.

Congo’s about-face in allowing new oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas comes 9 months after its president, Félix Tshisekedi, stood alongside world leaders at the global climate summit in Glasgow, and once again endorsed an agreement to protect its jungle. This deal included international pledges of $500 million for Congo, over the first five years, for preserving the rainforest.

But since then, the world’s immediate priorities have shifted. Congo is referring to their right to development and since the war in ukraine, the african energy reserves became a sought-after alternative.

The funding rights will bring $600 billion to one of the poorest countries in the world, although it remains questionable whether the distribution of revenue from raw material extractions has always been to the benefit of the government, especially in Congo.
However, non-government organizations (NGOs) believe, the price that the project will demand, is likely to be significantly higher in the end, and sacrificing the congolese jungle for fossil fuels, despite ongoing global warming, would be tantamount to climate suicide.

Summary and own opinion: Developed nations did not fulfill the promises they made to the nation, to give funds in exchange for keeping it uncut. They had
over a decade to do so.
The promise occurred back around 2009 and 2014, and to date, only about 2% of what was promised had been delivered. So, in 2021, after another stalemate, the government decided to go ahead and stop listening to the words of the promising countries. And have issued statements to that effect.

It should have been solved by nations who are rich enough that everyone has plenty of food, computers, netfix, and can relax and chill.
Expecting the government to let their people starve is political suicide, and if there is no government, there would be no protected spaces at all.
It is a shitty situation for them, that could only have been prevented by real investment by Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and the like in paying them to keep it open,
with contracts and investiture with their own patrols to assist in training and wildlife maintenance.

They claim is that the Western countries did not want to give money, because they feared that the country was too corrupt. But you can put them on a leash, if the West had chosen to, by tying the funds up dependent on satellite observation of adherence to the contract.
Basically, what needed to happen would be to send in engineers to build up the Congo's electrical infrastructure, to reduce the demand for logging, and to have guarded inspectors on the ground around the country, from the nations who had a vested interest, as insurance against the government not abiding by the contract.
And if they don't, they stop sending funds. It would have kept the situation in a better state, than it is right now or might be soon.

If it makes you feel better, the Earth WILL recover.
No matter how bad we screwed it up - In geologic terms, new life will come back.
Only then we won't be around to see it.

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Sauces:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/world/africa/congo-oil-gas-auction.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWRzLeBmw0w
--and my worldtraveler-friend who wants to stay anon.
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