Virunga film-makers ask viewers to join campaign against oil company Soco

Film-makers hoping to force a British oil company to rule out all future development in a war-torn world heritage site in Africa have urged viewers to protest to the company’s financial backers.

Producers of the documentary Virunga, set in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) park which is home to many of the world’s remaining 800 mountain gorillas, will on Friday publish a list of all major British and international pension funds, companies and banks who back London-based Soco’s search for oil in some of the world’s most volatile regions. They include the Church of England investment fund, M&S, Aviva, Scottish Widows and and several high street banks.

Joanna Natasegara, a co-producer, said: “Many funds and financial investments tie into Soco without people knowing. We want people to write to the [financial] companies and ask them if Soco intend to really stay away from Virunga forever and what they will be doing to safeguard the park for the future.”

Soco left the national park earlier this year but its presence since 2007 in the heavily-forested African rift valley has caused an international storm and has been condemned by Unesco, the UK government and the naturalist David Attenborough. Environment and human rights groups including WWF and Global Witness have said that oil exploitation in the unstable region, which has seen up to six million people die in successive civil wars, could lead to a resumption of conflict and corruption.

This week Attenborough called on the company to permanently withdraw from Virunga.

“It would be extremely worrying if the great, rich and varied park of Virunga were to be exploited for oil. Not only would it threaten a park that is home to a vast range of wildlife including about a third of the world’s endangered mountain gorillas, but it would also send a worrying signal for the future of other world heritage sites. If the treasured Virunga park cannot be protected from drilling, can anywhere else?” he told the Independent on Sunday.

Following a London showing of the documentary ahead of its worldwide release on Netflix this Friday, Soco International repeated the statement which it made jointly with WWF in June, “not to undertake or commission any exploratory or other drilling within Virunga national park unless Unesco and the DRC government agree that such activities are not incompatible with its World Heritage status”.

“We have pulled out. We have said that we will not search for oil in any world heritage site, nor in their buffer zones,” a spokesman for the company told the Guardian.

“The film misrepresents the scope and location of the company’s activities in Block V and does not accurately portray our track record to date of responsible operating. It has been produced by one of the company’s detractors and is not what we consider an objective portrayal of the facts surrounding Soco’s operations.”

“We are aware of Sir David Attenborough’s comments and have deep respect for his views but would like to remind everyone that Soco is not exploring in the Virunga national park. Following our agreement in June, Soco agreed with WWF to commit not to undertake or commission any exploratory or other drilling within Virunga national park and went further by adding that Soco commits not to conduct any operations in any other world heritage site or adjacent buffer zones.”

However, critics of the company have said that Soco has physically left the park because its exploratory work has been completed and that its commitment could prove worthless if the Congolese government annulled the park’s status or declassified its boundaries and buffer zones. No indication has so far been given as to how much oil or gas may lie in Block V, the area that Soco had been allowed to explore.

Emmanuel de Merode, the Belgian director of the Virunga park where 130 rangers have been killed in the last 20 years protecting the gorillas and other wild animals, said: “We cannot lecture the oil industry. We are not anti-oil. But this is about values. Underlying the Virunga park is a history of war and conflict. In eastern Congo there has been armed conflict for 20 years. It has happened because of the incredible wealth of natural resources and their illegal exploitation.

“Every war in the last 20 years in eastern Congo has started in or around the Virunga national park. It is the incredibly rich resources in the park which has attracted the armed groups and which has led to the death of six million innocent people.

“I am a Congolese government official. We have the support of the government [in Kinshasa]. But Congolese government institutions are vulnerable after 20 years of civil war. Virunga is a good example of where African civil servants have held their ground against astonishing odds. So far we have been successful [in protecting the park].”

He said that the future of the park was at a crossroads with a clear choice between oil exploitation, which he believed would foster conflict and corruption, and peaceful development built around renewable energy and tourism.

“Everything we value is now at stake. The outlook is very polarised between the park and the oil. The locals will choose.”