Despite widespread local and international opposition, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has launched a new licensing round for 52 oil blocks (in addition to 3 blocks licensed to CoMico) covering a staggering 124 million hectares, representing a significant and troubling expansion from the 2022 tender.

While the Ministry of Hydrocarbons insists the process is more transparent and excludes most protected areas, new spatial analyses tell a different story. Maps from the latest tender reveal the disturbing extent to which these blocks overlap with key ecological and life-sustaining areas. From the Congo’s much-lauded Green Corridor project to its protected areas, forests, and Indigenous lands, the data show that critical landscapes remain firmly in the crosshairs of extractive expansion.

Challenges Persist for Protected Areas and Critical Ecosystems Amid New Developments

The new oil blocks suggest that the DRC has responded to calls to keep oil and gas operations out of high-profile protected areas, a hard-won victory for environmental defenders. Notable sites such as Virunga National Park, which faced direct overlap with oil blocks in the 2022 licensing round, have been excluded from the 2025 blocks. While this progress is encouraging, the broader picture remains deeply alarming.

Despite adjustments to avoid specific protected areas, overlap persists: 8.3 million hectares of the new oil blocks intersect with protected areas, and 8.6 million hectares overlap with internationally recognized Key Biodiversity Areas.

Meanwhile, the new concessions are carefully drawn to skirt the boundaries of other protected areas, avoiding direct overlap but remaining immediately adjacent to some of the Congo Basin’s most important areas for biodiversity and climate. This proximity raises serious concerns about direct and indirect impacts including infrastructure development, increased human access, and associated environmental degradation around protected areas that can compromise ecological integrity, even without direct drilling inside their boundaries.

The threat to the DRC’s intact forest landscapes, which are globally significant for carbon storage and biodiversity, is also stark. 66.8 million hectares, or 64% of the DRC’s remaining intact forests, fall within the boundaries of the concessions. The overall expansion of oil block coverage in the DRC, now totaling more than half of the DRC’s entire land area, represents a substantial intensification of extractive pressure across the Congo Basin.

The Green Corridor Jeopardized by Expanding Oil Concessions

The proposed Green Corridor from Kivu-Kinshasa faces serious threats from the new oil concessions overlapping much of its area. In total, 29 oil blocks cover 72% of the Green Corridor, jeopardizing one of the DRC’s most ambitious conservation initiatives by cutting into key ecosystems and undermining its integrity.

Formally established by ministerial decree in January 2025, the Corridor aims to safeguard over 100,000 km² of primary forests and 60,000 km² of peatlands. At the landscape scale, the Corridor could serve as a powerful buffer against biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, and land degradation. However, the project has faced criticism for inadequate consultation with local communities whose lands and livelihoods could be directly affected— and with the announcement of the 2025 oil tender, the Corridor’s legitimacy is under direct threat.

Despite government rhetoric in support of conservation-based development, the decision to auction fossil fuel concessions within the Corridor threatens the international reputation of the project and undermines its commitments to biodiversity and climate action.

Fossil Fuel Expansion in the World’s Largest Tropical Peatland

The Cuvette Centrale is a vast tropical peatland complex situated in the Congo Basin, spanning the DRC and the Republic of the Congo (RoC). Covering more than 145,000 square kilometers, an area roughly the size of Nepal, it is the largest and most carbon-rich peatland system in the world, storing an estimated 30 gigatons of carbon. In addition to its vital role in global climate regulation, the Cuvette Centrale is a biodiversity hotspot, home to a wide range of wildlife and a lifeline for local communities who depend on its natural resources.

Despite its importance, the Cuvette Centrale is now at serious risk. The newly announced oil blocks cover nearly the entire peatland, and any disturbance to these fragile ecosystems threatens to release vast amounts of stored carbon, accelerating climate change and devastating both regional biodiversity and the communities that depend on its protection.

Livelihoods on the Line

The expansion of oil blocks in the DRC is not only a threat to nature—it is a direct threat to people. An estimated 39 million people live within the boundaries of the newly designated oil blocks, many of whom rely on their lands and forests for food, water, livelihoods, and cultural identity.

Alarmingly, 63% of community forests now fall within oil block boundaries. These forests are essential not only for biodiversity and climate resilience, but for community governance, subsistence, and self-determination. Expanding fossil fuel concessions into these areas risks violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, eroding traditional knowledge systems, and undermining the future of those whose livelihoods rely on these landscapes.

A Turning Point for People and Nature in the DRC

The disappointing launch of the 2025 licensing round signals that the DRC is doubling down on fossil fuel expansion despite continued opposition from Congolese civil society. These new maps reveal what political rhetoric obscures: extractive development continues to encroach on the very ecosystems and cultural landscapes the government has pledged to protect.

Local actors, including the Our Earth Without Oil coalition, are calling for the immediate cancellation of oil block sales and concessions, a moratorium on fossil fuel expansion, and a new vision for the country grounded in peace, justice, and environmental dignity. The DRC should take this call seriously.

The government is at a turning point: it can choose to align with global climate goals and respond to calls from its people to halt fossil fuel expansion into forests and peatlands, or continue down a path that risks irreversible harm to biodiversity, communities, and Earth’s climate.

What happens next will shape the future of the Congo Basin and the planet.