Large scale land acquisition and resettlement: Land acquisition is needed for both pipeline construction and associated infrastructure is necessary on both a temporary and permanent basis, as the pipeline route traverses a number of heavily populated districts in both Uganda and Tanzania. In total, 5,300 hectares of land will be needed for construction and operation of the pipeline, which means that around 14,000 households will lose land. Of these 14,000, roughly 200 households in Uganda and 331 households in Tanzania will have to be resettled, and approximately 3,200 to 3,500 households in Uganda and 9513 households in Tanzania will be economically displaced, which means they will lose land (Oxfam, 2020).

The valuation and compensation process for the land to be acquired for the project has been characterised by delays, insufficient provision of information to communities, harassment and irregularities. Affected people have stated that they had only a basic understanding of the project’s stakeholder engagement process and felt that the project subcontractors had pressured them into signing valuation forms without ensuring their full understanding of this process. They further reported that they did not receive copies of the documents they signed and that they were forced to sign the documents in pencil. Local community representatives also report having been harassed, forced to sign different forms without clear explanation, stamp and sign empty forms, and fill valuation forms using a pencil but sign in ink.

Impacts of delayed compensation: Cut-off dates, after which compensation will not be paid for new permanent developments on land valued and demarcated for the project, were announced between April and June 2019 in Uganda, and between March and September 2018 in Tanzania. Ever since the cut-off dates were announced, affected households live in uncertainty. While growing seasonal crops is allowed, some households are afraid to lose their harvest if they have to vacate the land at short notice. Others have claimed they are not allowed to farm cash crops. Many households have decided to give up on agriculture (Oxfam, 2020 p59). Local organisations report that people are afraid to put up new developments such as graves and latrines on their land. 

Two years after announcing the cut-off dates in Tanzania and one year in Uganda, compensation has still not been paid, and there is no certainty around when it will be paid as the process will only recommence once a Final Investment Decision is made. The delays in paying compensation and the restrictions on using the land have severely impacted people's livelihoods and the continuation of everyday life.                      

Impacts on livelihoods: Oil extraction is expected to have profound impacts on livelihoods, including for those who are reliant on agriculture, livestock rearing, and fishing in Lake Albert, where oil extraction will occur. 

The pipeline poses a threat to critical sources of water. Approximately 460 km of the pipeline will be within the freshwater basin of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, which directly supports the livelihoods of more than 40 million people in the region. The pipeline also crosses the Kamugenyi, Wambabya, Kanywabarogo, and Kifenyi rivers, and the Kijubya and Lwemido swamps in Uganda. In Tanzania, water sources the pipeline will cross include the Kagera, Wembere, Pangani and Sigi rivers, and the water dam in Mpera village.. 

Oil spills are not unlikely to happen in the future as they have already occurred upstream, leading to the pollution of the water sources so many people depend on. The pipeline poses significant risks of degrading or polluting these water sources where pipes are buried under them. Rather than using horizontal directional drilling to cross watercourses, which is considered industry best practice, Total and its partners have opted for the lowest cost option, open cut trenching, for almost all water crossings. 

Impacts on tourism: The region’s thriving tourism sector is a source of livelihood and pride to many in East Africa. This includes the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest park and a popular tourist destination, where 40% of Lake Albert’s oil is located. Tanzania, where 1,149 kilometres of the pipeline will be built and operated, is a country heavily dependent on tourism and on its wetland ecosystem for transport, fishing, agro-pastoral activities, hydrological processes and irrigation. For this reason the possibility of a pipeline leak leading to degradation of these key ecosystems, protected areas and wildlife habitats is not only an environmental threat, but a severe socio-economic one as well. Employment benefits brought by the pipeline project (expected to provide a total of 5,000 jobs of which only 300 will be permanent) is far overshadowed by the potential loss of jobs in the tourism sector and the social, environmental and socio-economic costs of disruption of those ecosystems resulting from the project.

Oxfam’s Human Rights Impact Assessment already points to people having limited access to information on employment opportunities or even being denied employment in the initial stages of the project as the companies work through sub-contractors, drivers, and service providers from Kampala, not from local communities.  

Gender aspects: Oil extraction often causes disproportionate impacts on women, who often carry the burden of relocation and change in society while not benefiting from new employment opportunities. The gender analysis commissioned by Oxfam describes several possible impacts particular to or more likely to affect women. With regard to income and work, impacts include a potential loss of income when women lose land or when men capture the project benefits and compensation. Oxfam’s Human Rights Impact Assessment of the project documents that “respondents in Uganda felt that women were excluded during land acquisition processes” because community consultations were often conducted at times when women would be unable to attend. In addition, during the valuation of the property, contractors require information from the landowners, who are predominantly men, meaning most women are excluded from receiving money. Other impacts include an increased work burden for women if men find work in the project (instead of working on the land for instance), and a consequential loss of power in the household if men start earning cash wages. 

With regard to safety, the project is likely to increase women’s vulnerability to gender based violence and to decrease their ability to move safely in the project areas. These impacts have already been observed in the cases of the West-Africa and Chad-Cameroon oil and gas pipelines. In addition, the project might lead to an increasing in sex work in the project areas. According to ActionAid’s report on the human rights impact of Uganda’s oil sector, the sex trade in Hoima, where extraction at Lake Albert will occur, has significantly increased over the last several years due to the discovery of oil. 

Lastly, the conditions at workers’ camps designed for the project might favour the spread of communicable diseases. These diseases might then be spread to the surrounding communities through local workers or contact between workers and the communities. Since women are typically responsible for the care of family members, they are disproportionately exposed to these diseases. 

Impacts on cultural rights, including for Indiginous Peoples:  Another concern of communities along the pipeline is the loss or destruction of land and structures of spiritual value, such as sacred sites, graves, and cemeteries, and cultural ways of life that are linked to agriculture, fishing, and hunting. These activities rely heavily on access to specific spaces. Communities that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the EACOP project are the Barbaig, Sandawe, Ndorobo, Maasai, Akie, and Taturu – Indigenous tribes that depend on nature for their livelihoods, and the Bagungu, who identify as Indigenous, who reside in different parts of the Albertine region along the shores of Lake Albert.   

Threats to human rights defenders and journalists: Members of civil society and journalists who speak up about the social and environmental consequences of among others EACOP and the Tilenga project have been intimidated and even arrested on different occasions. Two defenders who testified in the trial against Total in a court in France on December 12th 2019 were harassed upon their return to Uganda. Community leader Jelousy Mugisha was arrested and questioned for nearly nine hours at Kampala Airport. Unknown men attempted to break into farmer Fred Mwesigwa’s house late on the night of December 23 and again the following night. He had to flee his house after these events.

On the 15th and 16th of September 2020, three journalists and six environmental activists were arrested by police in Hoima, Uganda. The journalists and activists had called for public mobilisation against a large-scale sugarcane cultivation in Bugoma Forest on the day the arrests began and they had also warned about the impacts of EACOP and the Tilenga project on the forest. The police department spoke publicly of a “preventive arrest”, stating: “we want to make sure they don’t have that demonstration today”. By September 17th, all of the arrested individuals were again released and ordered to leave the oil region.   

Biodiversity, wildlife and protected nature areas: Extraction at the oil fields in Albertine Graben will most directly impact the Murchison Falls National Park, posing a serious threat to biodiversity and rare and endangered species. Moreover, important tributaries of the Nile flow nearby. Communities expressed their concerns over the possibility of oil spills and other pollution affecting the river and having impacts as distant as North Africa and leading to an increase in cross-border conflicts.

Nearly 2,000 square kilometres of protected wildlife habitats will be negatively impacted by the EACOP project. Although the official EACOP route starts in Hoima, which lies outside the Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, a feeder pipeline will be constructed that will run from the Tilenga oil field which is partly situated in the National Park to the EACOP starting point. Another feeder pipeline will encroach on the vulnerable Bugoma Forest Reserve, home to large groups of Eastern chimpanzees. From Hoima, EACOP subsequently runs through the Taala Forest Reserve. The potential loss of forest cover involved in constructing the EACOP is particularly problematic considering Uganda is already losing about 90,000 hectares of forest per year.

In Tanzania, the pipeline will run through even more (protected) areas crucial for biodiversity including the Biharamulo Game Reserve and Wembere Steppe Key Biodiversity Area. Biharamulo Game Reserve hosts a diversity of animals such as lions, buffalo, elands, lesser kudu, impalas, hippos, giraffes, zebras, roan antelopes, sitatungas, sables, aardvarks, and the red colobus monkey. The Wembere steppe is an important place for seasonal birds. In all, some 500km2 of wildlife corridors for the Eastern Chimpanzee and African Elephant are likely to be severely degraded. 

Finally, when reaching the Tanzanian shore, two important Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs), the Pemba-Shimoni-Kisite site and the Tanga Coelacanth site, are at high risk given the huge amount of oil to be transferred offshore at the Tanga Port. These EBSAS host several Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as well as Mangrove Forest Reserves, and coral reefs and waters with dugongs and sea turtles.

Ramsar Wetlands: Both components of the project will directly impact several Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance. (The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands.) Oil extraction will take place within the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System, a Ramsar site that plays an important role for wildlife in the National Park and is a spawning ground for indigenous fish species. The pipeline will also run near or through a number of Ramsar sites that lie just west of Lake Victoria, including Mabamba Bay, the Lake Mburo-Nakivali System, the Lake Nabugabo System, the Nabajjuzi System, and the Sango Bay-Musambwa Island (SEI/IGSD 2020, forthcoming). Several potential financiers have policies restricting them from financing operations that adversely impact Ramsar sites.

Pollution and waste: The probability of a pipeline oil spill is high, particularly given that about a third of the pipeline is located in the Lake Victoria watershed, an active seismic area. Indeed there are already several accounts of oil spills or seepages in the Albertine Graben region, including one at the Kiboro hot springs on March 29, 2020.

There is also the risk of the accumulation or disposal of hazardous waste. The pipeline will have to be regularly cleaned, and this cleaning generates hazardous waste containing benzene, a human carcinogen. This waste will have to be either incinerated, which can generate hazardous air pollution, or be disposed of in storage sites at each pumping station, meaning each pumping station would become a hazardous-waste disposal site.    

Water sources: The pipeline poses high risks of freshwater pollution and degradation, particularly to the Lake Victoria basin, which over 400 kilometres of the pipeline will traverse. In addition, constructing and testing the pipeline requires a significant amount of water. The Tanzanian ESIA mentions several large batches of approximately 16,000 m3 of water will be needed for testing. According to the Tanzania ESIA, the pipeline will pass through several regions that receive little rainfall and are already water scarce further threatening the water availability.  

Climate change: The EACOP pipeline will carry 216,000 barrels of crude oil per day at ‘plateau production’. This oil is likely to result in CO2 emissions of over 33 million tonnes each year, significantly greater than the combined emissions of Uganda and Tanzania, at a time when the world’s scientists are telling us that new fossil fuel developments need to stop if we are to tackle the climate crisis. According to a report from the Carbon Tracker Initiative, several of Total and CNOOC’s projects in Uganda are incompatible with the Paris Agreement. 

Limited opportunities for stakeholder participation in ESIAs: Formal opportunities  for community members to participate in the impact assessment of the EACOP were limited in both countries. The options for stakeholder participation included commenting on the ESIA scoping report, going to public hearings, and reviewing the final ESIAs. Consultation periods for the ESIAs were very short. In Tanzania the formal consultation period was only 14 days, in Uganda it was 28 days. In addition, despite public hearings and meetings, community members in Uganda as well as Tanzania felt they did not receive sufficient detailed information among others about the environmental and social impacts of the project necessary to engage in meaningful public consultation.