ReconAfrica recognises and accepts the importance of pertinent cultural and historical sites, the company announced via a statement issued Tuesday. The statement comes hot on the heels of petitions by civil society groups to UNESCO’s World Heritage Site Centre in Namibia. The groups raised grave concerns that ReconAfrica’s planned oil and gas exploration projects could impact negatively on the Okavango Delta and Tsodilo World Heritage properties.
In its Tuesday statement, ReconAfrica stated;
As such the Tsodilo Hills, located in north-west Botswana near the Namibian border, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has always been recognised by our company, as a site with this specific, highly important, designation.
To this regard, ReconAfrica and the Government of Botswana began a process in October of 2020 to address this important issue. As a direct result of our collaborative process, the Republic of Botswana has now issued an updated License to ReconAfrica excluding ReconAfrica’s entire Core and Buffer areas of the Tsodilo Hills.
The License area is now 8990 km2 (2,221,000 acres) versus the previous 9,921 km2 (2,450,000 acres). ReconAfrica is pleased with this preferred structure as our company has never had plans for operations in the Tsodilo Hills area. ReconAfrica follows strict environment, social and governance protocols.
ReconAfrica is committed to establishing operational transparency and working with all local and national stakeholders. In all aspects of its operations, ReconAfrica is committed to minimal disturbances in line with international best standards and will implement environmental and social best practices in all of its project areas.
ReconAfrica is a junior oil and gas company engaged in the opening of the newly discovered deep Kavango Sedimentary Basin, in northeastern Namibia and northwestern Botswana where the company holds petroleum licenses comprising approximately 8.5 million contiguous acres.
For the complete article: http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/republic-of-botswana-and-reconafrica-amend-exploration-license-to-exclude-entire-tsodilo-hills-area-837436712.html
