New report shows threats to the Three Basins

Indigenous and civil society organizations hold press conference calling on world leaders gathering at the Summit of the Three Basins this week to commit to protecting tropical forests in these critical basins and to scale up rights-based legal protections

• We are at a critical juncture in the nature crisis: the science is unambiguous about the need to halt all new oil and gas developments in order to keep the planet below 1.5 ˚C of warming. 
• Report launched in advance of the Summit of the Three Basins in Brazzaville this week paints a stark picture of the challenges facing the world’s remaining tropical forest basins.
• There is a window for solutions while these threats are not yet realities, if world leaders are bold and act quickly. Indigenous peoples and local communities must be at the heart of these.

October 24th, 2023 (Brazzaville) — At a press briefing earlier today ahead of the Summit of the Three Basins, research group Earth Insight and global partners released a range of new findings in a report entitled Three Basins Threat Report: Fossil Fuel, Mining, and Industrial Expansion Threats to Forests and Communities.

The report dives into the immediate threat to tropical forests posed by fossil fuel expansion, which—regardless of location—threatens to warm the planet enough to push tropical forests to the brink, threatening Indigenous communities, biodiversity, and freshwater.

And, as the new maps show, even as the energy transition holds promise for getting the world—and these places—off of fossil fuels, other threats also loom large, including mining of energy transition metals and materials, logging, and agriculture.

Read the report or executive summary now: www.earth-insight.org/three-basins-report-landing

Other publishing partners of the report include: Rainforest Foundation UK, DRC-based organization Dynamique des Groupes des Peuples Autochtones (DGPA), Cameroon-based AJESH, Auriga Nusantara from Indonesia, and COICA and the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance from the Amazon basin.

The briefing today closed with a call-to-action from Indigenous, community, and civil society leaders to put human rights at the center of the Three Basins Initiative. Watch the recording of the event here.

Key report findings

Across the three basins:

• Nearly 20% of intact tropical forests in the three basins are now in active and potential oil and gas concessions
• Nearly 25% of intact tropical forests in the Amazon and Congo basins are now in active or potential mining concessions
• In Indonesia, half of all nickel concessions (primarily for EV’s) overlap with natural forests and a fivefold risk of deforestation/degradation is possible if nickel mining permits expand to cover the full deposit area
• Over 200 million people, including a significant proportion of Indigenous and local communities, or about 20% of the population in the three basin regions, live within oil and gas blocks.

These and other pressures are contributing factors to the staggering global tropical primary forest loss in 2022 which totaled 4.1 million hectares, or the equivalent of 11 football fields of forest disappearing every minute according to University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis.

In the Amazon basin:

• An estimated 65 million hectares or nearly 13% of undisturbed tropical forests now overlap with existing or planned oil and gas blocks in the Amazon Basin.
• More than 170 million hectares or more than 33% of undisturbed Tropical Moist Forests overlap with active and inactive mining concessions in the Amazon Basin
• Over 500 distinct Indigenous nationalities call the Amazon Basin home and more than 31 million hectares of Indigenous Territories are now in oil and gas blocks designated for production or exploration and more than 70 million hectares of Indigenous Territories overlap with active and inactive mining concessions
• More than 13,000 villages, towns, etc. — or more than 23% of populated places in Amazonia — are now in oil and gas production or exploration blocks and more than 16,000 populated places (villages, communities, towns, etc.) are located in active and inactive mining concessions

In the Congo basin:

• More than 72 million hectares or more than 39% of undisturbed Tropical Moist Forests in the Congo Basin now overlap with oil and gas blocks
• Nearly 48 million hectares or nearly 27% of undisturbed Tropical Moist Forests overlap with mining concessions in the Congo basin
• Over 150 distinct ethnic groups call the Congo Basin region home and more than 17,000 populated places (villages, communities, towns, etc.) are now in oil and gas blocks and more than 11,000 populated places both inclusive of Indigenous and forest-dependent people are located in mining concessions in the Congo basin region

In Southeast Asia:

• In Southeast Asia, more than 34.8 million hectares or nearly 20% of undisturbed Tropical Moist Forests are in oil and gas blocks designated for production or exploration
• In Indonesia, more than 99,000 populated places (villages, communities, towns, etc.) are located in oil and gas blocks and over 3,000 populated places are located in mining concessions — both overlap areas inclusive of a high degree of Indigenous and forest-based peoples
• In Indonesia, 53% of natural forests are vulnerable to being granted for varying extractive concessions (palm oil, mining, logging, forests for energy, etc.) by the government
• In Indonesia, nearly half of nickel mining concessions (primarily for the EV sector) overlap with natural forests and a fivefold risk of deforestation is possible if nickel mining permits expand to cover the full deposit area

Enclosures: Report and Maps

• Three Basins Threat Report: Fossil Fuel, Mining, and Industrial Expansion Threats to Forests and Communities
• Folder with report maps, organized by region
• Statement from Indigenous Peoples, environmental and human rights organizations working in the three basins 

Quotes from Indigenous and regional leaders

Quotes from Earth Insight and other participating partners

Interview opportunities

Speakers from the press briefing are available for interviews.

Bart Wickel, report author and Research Director at Earth Insight, is available for interviews.

Media contacts

Earth Insight:

Contact Lynsey Grosfield, Head of Communications, with any questions or to arrange interviews: lynsey@earth-insight.org, +1 514 430 5203