Bridge to prosperity taken away by oil pipeline builders

The population of a small village in rural Cameroon says it feels "abandoned" by the Government after a vital transport link was removed, leaving it cut off from essential services such as health care. Lom II gained access to the wider world just 18 months ago as a result of a new road and bridge built to service the construction of an oil pipeline. But it soon became the loser in an international battle involving the government, the World Bank and three major oil companies. Built at a cost of US $3.7 billion the Chad-Cameroon pipeline was the biggest construction project in African history. It has impacted on thousands of rural communities along the 1,100 km route from Doba in southern Chad to Kribi on the Cameroonian coast. It took three and a half years to build and was due to open on July 15. ExxonMobil, which owns a 40 percent stake in the pipeline, estimates that Chad will earn between $2.5 billion to $8.5 billion over the next 25- 30 years as 225 barrels of oil per day are pumped down to the coast for export. The US-based oil major estimates that Cameroon will attract pipeline revenues of up to $900 million over the same period. In some cases, entire villages have been moved to make way for the pipeline, which took nearly four years to build. Forest has been cleared and hunting grounds have been disturbed. Many communities have benefited from the project by receiving cash compensation, new schools and modern transport links. Lom II, in southeastern Cameroon, was one village which hoped the pipeline would end its isolation from the rest of the country, but it has been cruelly disappointed. The development of this small settlement stalled long ago because a major river separated it from Belabo, the nearest town, 40 km away. Villagers had to make a long circuitous journey to cross the river by bridge or tackle the dangerous river crossing in dugout canoes. The barrier created by the Lom river meant the villagers had no access to health care, trade opportunities or local government. As a result the inhabitants of Lom ll survived through subsistence farming. They grew what they needed to eat, gathered fruit and hunted game in the forests, taking little part in commerce. Their chances of improvement or development were slight. When the route of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline was mapped out, however, Lom II found itself directly in the path of construction work. COTCO (Cameroon Oil Transportation Company), which is owned by ExxonMobil and its partners ChevronTexaco and Petronas, had to take the pipeline across the Lom river close to the village. The most convenient way to get the company's vehicles, personnel and materials across the water was to build a one km long bridge. For the first time in its history, Lom II had access to the wider world. Suddenly, farmers could sell their goods in the markets of Belabo, sick people could be taken to hospital and visitors could come to the village from outside. "[The bridge] was an enormous development for them" said Oliver Mokom, extractive industries advisor for the Catholic Relief Services, "the biggest development in their history". But the miracle was to prove shortlived. Stretching for hundreds of square kilometres around Lom II are two forest reserves - Pangar et Gjerem and Deng-Deng. Both are so isolated and remote that they have remained untouched by poachers and loggers even though other parts of Cameroon have been devastated by their activities. There was no doubt that while Lom II's bridge gave the villagers access to the wider world, it also gave the world access to Pangar et Gjerem and Deng-Deng. Environmentalists predicted that logging trucks would cross the bridge to target the valuable hardwood and that chimpanzees and gorillas would be hunted for Cameroon's highly lucrative trade in bush meat. The bridge across the river Lom presented a direct threat to the future of one of Cameroon's oldest areas of primary rainforest and the diverse wildlife which inhabits it. Under the World Bank's original contract with the Cameroonian Government and COTCO, it was agreed that every aspect of infrastructure put down during the construction of the pipeline - roads, bridges, warehouses and even airstrips - would be removed at the end of the project so that the environment could return to its former state as best it could. "It was a simple decision," says Emmanuel Noubissie, the World Bank's project co-ordinator in Cameroon. "Under the Environmental Management Plan any 'induced access' had to be removed. "Our position was that we had to implement the EMP, there is a mechanism in place to modify it if the Cameroonian Government set that process in motion, but in this case they did not". The residents of Lom II fought to save the bridge, but found themselves up against the full weight of the international environmental lobby. The villagers did themselves very few favours by threatening physical violence against anyone who came to remove the bridge during a public meeting. "They were desperate" said Mokom. Nevertheless, after many months of arguments, the World Bank stood by its own directive and COTCO was instructed to remove the crossing. The bridge was dismantled without incident. Noubissie said: "The prime minister of Cameroon wrote to us saying the bridge should be removed. We cannot overrule the prime minister. But the people were very angry, it's normal". Caught up in the perpetual conflict between socio-economic needs and environmental pressures, the people of Lom II suffered their defeat. But Oliver Mokom insisted the issue never had to be black and white. "There was a third way" he said. "The villagers would have been more than willing to act as forest guards. They know the forest is all they have". He explained that it would have been possible to obstruct the bridge using concrete blocks so that logging trucks could not cross. Poachers could have been kept at bay by a community watch. "But that would require the means" he said. "They need vehicles, cameras and even binoculars. That’s if the government would be willing to provide long-term funding". Noubissie agreed that the Lom saga came down to money. But he insisted that it was not a straight choice between the people and the environment. "It's not just about gorillas and chimps. You cannot sacrifice human beings for gorillas and chimps" he said, adding that the real problem with the 'Third Way' option was cost. "The bridge was owned by Willbros [a building contractor which worked on the pipeline] and because it was a metal bridge, they were able to reuse it elsewhere, so they wanted to charge US $1 million to leave it in place. And blocking off the bridge was even more costly". Mokom said it was not the duty of a multinational oil company to improve the lot of a Cameroonian village. He felt the government should have tackled Lom's problems many years ago. "The people feel abandoned. I hope this has sensitized the government. They make a lot of promises but there is a difference between promises and reality," he said. The World Bank has also made a promise to the people of Lom II which Noubissie hopes will compensate their loss. "We are researching a series of micro-projects under the Programme Nationale de Development Participative. We don't want to go in and just build schools and hospitals without consulting the people to assess their needs, so it hasn't started yet," he said. "We are satisfied that this is being handled correctly but I will be more satisfied when the micro-projects are in place and the population feels less frustrated". In the meantime, the villagers of Lom II continue to cross the river from which they take their name in dugout canoes just as they have done for generations. Many people in Cameroon and around the world are relieved that the wildlife of Pangar et Gjerem and Deng-Deng continues to be too remote to entice those who would plunder first and ask ethical questions later. But equally, the families who increasingly depend on the forest's resources are left asking why no-one will fight this hard for their survival.