(this is an article locked for G&M subscribers, so I'm pasting only the first few paragraphs)
A consultant hired by a Canadian oil company in Southern Africa has launched an extraordinary series of attacks on environmentalists, accusing them of “sabotage” and “colonialism” as the company begins drilling in a region near the Okavango Delta.
Vancouver-based Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. (ReconAfrica)
hired consultant Sindila Mwiya to conduct environmental assessments for its oil exploration project in Namibia and Botswana. But his bitter criticism of activists has led to calls for his removal over his apparent lack of neutrality.
The confrontation is a sign of the high stakes and rising emotions surrounding the oil project, which has garnered increasing attention in Canada and Southern Africa.
The company has touted the Kavango Basin site as potentially one of the world’s biggest oil discoveries in decades, and local politicians see it as a source of much-needed jobs and revenue. But many environmentalists worry it could jeopardize biologically sensitive and culturally important World Heritage sites, including the Okavango Delta.
The company’s first drilling site is about 250 kilometres west but within the watershed of the world-famous delta, whose seasonal floods attract one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife, including vast numbers of elephants and lions. An elephant migration route is south of the drilling site.