Community leaders in the vast concession area part-owned by agribusiness company Feronia say living conditions on their estates are abysmal and claim that their ancestral land along the River Congo has been taken from them illegally.
Gabriel Resources was born in the breakup of the state-owned economy after Communism's collapse when Romanian businessmen with little mining experience and suspected ties to the former secret police won a vast concession to exploit mineral deposits.
Hoping for further concessions, Alrosa in recent weeks opened an office in Luanda.Meanwhile, in the Cuango valley, another consortium, including Endiama, Odebrecht, and Ashton Mining, an Australian firm, has spent six months rehabilitating the area of its vast concession, measuring 86,500 square kilometres, and is now starting to ramp up production there.
As vast mineral and timber concessions were handed to British and American companies, the global superpowers raised not a squeak of protest.
Compiled over almost a decade by Greenpeace using data from provincial governments, resource companies and others, the interactive maps highlight the vast scale of the concession overlap.
"China Gas provides a vast pipeline network and concession rights, which would be a solid base for future growth," said Shi Yan, an analyst based in Shanghai at the securities firm UOB Kay Hian.
I was on the 60,000-hectare Jao Concession, a vast tract of land – most of it underwater even in the driest part of the dry season – in the heart of Botswana's famed Okavango Delta.
Tay Za, reputedly the wealthiest man in Myanmar, holds vast teak and other timber concessions through his principal firm, the Htoo Group.
The government's demand is the latest example of China's willingness to use the leverage of Western access to the vast Chinese market to extract concessions on advanced technologies.
