Each year Christian Ndombe and other park rangers scour the beaches of Democratic Republic of Congo's vanishing coastline for turtle nests, bringing the eggs to a hatching centre where they are incubated for eight weeks.
Rising sea levels and erosion have consumed almost a quarter of the turtle's nesting grounds, the rangers estimate.
The nearby town of Moanda was abuzz with excitement about the project, which will transform the sleepy backwater into an international trade hub. "Banana Port will be a modern, world class port and undoubtedly a game changer for the DRC," Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of DP World, said at the stone-laying ceremony.Casting his net into a lagoon, fisherman Alexander Ngoma Chasa said he was looking forward to buying cheap goods and getting a job. But he worries about the turtles and his catch.
It is unclear how much of the mangrove forest will be cut down to make way for the port, if any, or the impact of super-tanker traffic because DP World has not published its environmental and social impact assessment. Authorities at the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation , the government agency that manages Congo's national parks through its rangers, said its experts were not properly consulted by the developers.
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