Climate · Following the trail
A pipeline’s paper trail, mapped
Permits said the route avoided protected wetlands. The survey coordinates, plotted, say it runs straight through them.
By A. Okonkwo · Lagos · · 14 min
A 240-kilometre pipeline was permitted on the basis that it skirted a protected wetland. We took the survey coordinates filed with the permit and plotted them on the same maps the regulator used.
18 kilometres of the route cross land the permit lists as protected.
The coordinates are public. Anyone can plot them. We simply did.
The maps are reproduced here at full resolution, with the protected boundaries the regulator published overlaid on the filed route.
Methodology
knowless plotted the survey coordinates from the permit application against the regulator’s own published conservation boundaries.
Environment · Permits · Infrastructure