Gorilla habitats and pristine forest at risk as DRC opens half of country to oil and gas drilling bids

Endangered eastern lowland gorillas in Kahuzi-Biega national park, South Kivu. Their habitat is potentially threatened by the expansion of oil and gas mining. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is opening crucial gorilla habitats and pristine forests to bids for oil and gas drilling, with plans to carve up more than half the country into fossil fuel blocks.

The blocks opened for auction cover 124m hectares (306m acres) of land and inland waters described by experts as the “world’s worst place to prospect for oil” because they hold vast amounts of carbon and are home to some of the planet’s most precious wildlife habitats, including endangered lowland gorillas and bonobo.