Original reporting: Leocadia Bongben · Global Voices — Economics & Business · CC BY 3.0 · 2026-10-27
Oil rigs threaten biodiversity and compromise the well-being of coastal and Indigenous communities
Offshore platform from Garand-Batanga Beach, Kribi South region of Cameroon. Photo by Leocadia Bongben. Used with permission.
This story by Leocadia Bongben was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.
Dede Sluk, 35, a father of three, sits pensively in front of his plank house, fishing nets hanging at the corner, wondering how to fish for his family and prepare his children for school. Sluk lives in the village of Grand-Batanga 2 in Kribi , in southern Cameroon. Like many fishermen there, Sluk is annoyed by the lack of access to fish beyond the offshore platforms. He states,
We don’t have access to areas with high fish stock; the Battaillon D’intervention Rapid (BIR), a special army unit guarding the petroleum platform, prohibits passage.
According to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s (EITI) 2023 report , oil and gas contributed FCFA 774.51 billion (USD 1.3 million) to Cameroon’s budget. However, these oil rigs threaten biodiversity and compromise the well-being of coastal and Indigenous communities.
Offshore oil and gas platforms are massive marine structures used to explore, drill, extract, and process petroleum and natural gas from rocky layers beneath the ocean floor; some require the laying of pipes. The yellow flames and smoke from the Ebome Marine Terminal , a petroleum rig operated by Perenco and SNH west of Grand Batanga , are visible 6.5 kilometers (4.04 miles) from the Kribi coastline.
Two other platforms are the Sanaga 2 offshore facility around Kribi , connected via undersea pipelines from onshore in Bipaga. West of the Kribi Port is the Kome-Kribi 1 Terminal (FSO), built in 2003, operated by Cameroon Oil Transport Company — the Chad-Cameroon pipeline. Meanwhile, the Hilli Episeyo, operated by Golar LNG, Perenco , and the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH), departed in July 2026, after eight years.
Among the platforms of concern are those operated by Perenco, a Franco-British company and a prominent player in the oil and gas sector, tagged as an opaque multinational by Friends of the Earth for oil spills, wastewater discharges, gas flaring, and old pipelines crossing rivers. An Info Congo investigation indicted Perenco for flaring and environmental hazards, endangering the coastal ecosystem and the health of local communities.
Tar balls found in a marine protected area, dolphin and whale strandings, and fish scarcity are hidden costs of offshore oil and gas exploitation, which seems to stall Cameroon’s progress towards the 30×30 marine target under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework .
Laure Ndingue, 50, a mother of five who worked as a fish roaster along Grand Batanga beach for over 10 years, knows that, opposite her charcoal braise, an oil and gas platform sits in the ocean. She recalls,
Growing up, six barfish were sold for FCFA 500 (USD 0.85); the price jumped to FCFA 1,000 (USD 1.70) and now is FCFA 5000 (USD 8.54) per kilogram. Even frozen fish is now expensive. Before, we were not suffering; fish stocks have declined.
Petroleum exploitation is done when the platform is planted on a rock, and most times, the rocks are marine ecosystems that breed fish. Now, the rocks are occupied by offshore installations, contributing to reduced fish stocks, explains Divine Francois Xavier Mbunje, a fisherman, geologist, and president of the 150-fishermen union at the Grand Batanga beach.
He suggests the government can demarcate platforms and areas of high fish concentration. About a kilometer or two from the beach, there is no fish, and three kilometers deep, we can have around forty kilograms of fish. Sluk proposes that oil and gas platforms should help the local population with activities like fish farming, loans to make up for the fish scarcity, recommending that the government provide a loan scheme and subsidize the purchase of motorized equipment, as this will help the fishers go further into the ocean.
He estimates the required nylon fishing gear for a fisherman at FCFA 1 million (USD 1,720) and FCFA 1,500,000 (USD 2,572) for an engine. Sluk explains,
Motorised gear will help us fish towards Ntem , Lokonje , and Douala away from the offshore platforms. We now rely on crabs to feed the family, with fish becoming rare.
Early in 2026, fishermen reported oil on their nets smelling like crude. “I was fishing and witnessed this strange phenomenon, which lasted for more than three weeks and gradually disappeared,” says Ebodje Emile, a fisherman in Ebodje village, where the marine protected area is situated, 50 kilometers (31.1 miles) from Kribi. Leon Kisito Bekwale, who has fished for about 35 years, still has nets his fishermen used, colored by oil. Still looking worried, he turns the nets dumped at the corner of the house to reveal the dark, oily parts.
Leon Kisito holding oily nets in Ebodje, Cameroon. Photo by Leocadia Bongben. Used with permission.
“I don’t know if this is linked to the offshore gas and oil,” Bekwale says, explaining that the wooden local boats only go for about three kilometers, suggesting the substance was inside the marine protected area, far from the petroleum platforms. Fishermen reported the phenomenon to the park conservator and NGOs.
A Perenco spokesperson told Global Voices via email:
We are not aware of any issues in the field across our sites, whether at the Northern or Southern sites. The comment may be referring to the northern coast of Cameroon, bordering Nigeria, where we have witnessed oil slicks drifting from Nigeria to Cameroon over recent years (possibly related to tanker discharge of oily waste or activities in Nigerian oil fields). This does not relate to any Perenco activity. Cameroon security forces are patrolling our sites and have also not reported any incidents.
Dr Jean Kenfack, focal point for seas and oceans at the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development, MINEPDED, also doubts the incident, outlining the procedure to inform the ministry of the incident: “In case of an incident, the departmental delegate sends the information to the ministry. In case of a spillage, an inspection mission is deployed to identify the author for sanctions if confirmed, and there is a pumping station in Kribi managed by the ministry with SNH and the Marines.”
Meanwhile, marine biologist Joel Wanba, Megafauna Officer at Tube Awu in Ebodje, who links the oily substance to activities along the coast, says, “But we do not have the means to analyze the substance given the small NGO budget; it is difficult to conduct such research.
Sources and further reading
Global Voices — Economics & Business · Leocadia Bongben · Original publication: 2026-10-27
Substantive reporting republished under CC BY 3.0; credited source text reformatted into paragraphs. No third-party photographs republished.