The oil giants drilling among the giraffes in Uganda

The oil giants drilling among the giraffes in Uganda

In the middle of the savannah grassland, a warthog looks on as a bulldozer levels the red earth. The noise of the road-building equipment jars across the calm of the morning, a time when animals that graze at dawn retreat from the rising sun.

As one of the world’s most famous game reserves, Murchison Falls National Park is home to some of the largest populations of elephants, giraffes, lions and leopards anywhere on the planet. Chief warden Edison Nuwamanya rattles off the numbers by heart: 2,700 elephants, 15,800 buffalo, 1,950 Rothschild’s giraffes and more than 150,000 kobs, a type of antelope. Decades of hard work and investment have helped to restore these populations after they were decimated by poaching.

But life here is about to encounter a new threat, as the $10bn Lake Albert oil project run by French oil company TotalEnergies and Chinese state oil developer Cnooc roars into life, after a final investment decision was reached earlier this year. A key part of it, the Tilenga oilfield, includes 10 well pads and a feeder pipeline inside the national park, bringing industrial activity on a scale this area has never seen before.

Many are worried about the impact it will have on