Forced displacements to make way for the project have resulted in people losing their homes and livelihoods. As of March 2020, 556 families had been forcefully relocated, with a further 2,000 families due to follow. Fishing communities have been moved 10 kilometres inland, depriving them of their traditional income. Furthermore, Anadarko’s illogical displacement compensation methodology has led to locals who relinquished, for example, 10 hectares of land, being awarded a home and only one hectare of land that were not located near each other. For more information on the displacement and resettlement of particular villages, click here.

The project has failed to carry out mandatory community consultations, observe due process in pre-existing land rights expropriations, or provide fair compensation. According to the local NGO Centro Terra Viva Mozambique, these failures breach the law.

Militarisation of the gas region has resulted in violent attacks upon local communities. Insurgent attacks in northern Mozambique began in October 2017. In February 2019, a driver employed by the Portuguese construction company Gabriel Couto was killed during an attack on a Mozambique LNG Project convoy. During April 2020 alone, government forces killed more than 100 Islamist insurgents. In July 2020, militants killed eight TotalEnergies subcontractors. In response, the government has militarised the area and gas companies have contracted foreign private security firms, including the placement of the Russian paramilitary Wagner group in Cabo Delgado.

Despite an increased security presence in the region, by March 2020 locals claimed to be “living under constant fear of mistreatment by the military and by private security actors”. These locals have found themselves afraid to walk the long distances to the new, compensatory farmland they have been given, for fear of military harassment and attacks.

The spreading of COVID-19 to Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province was attributed to the gas industry. An incoming TotalEnergies worker introduced the disease in April 2020, after which the Mozambique LNG Project construction site became the epicentre of the country’s COVID-19 crisis. TotalEnergie’s insufficient containment and testing policies meant that cooks, cleaners, security guards and other staff from surrounding villages interacted with infected TotalEnergies employees.

Media intimidation has resulted in many Cabo Delgado journalists being arrested or detained without charge, with some held in detention for months. The journalist Ibrahimo Abu Mbaruco went missing in April 2020, shortly after telling his mother that the military had arrested him; the local activist Mr Selemane disappeared in May 2020, 24 hours after speaking out against mistreatment at the hands of the military.

Seismic disturbances caused by gas field exploration affected local communities in the early 2010s. Seismic guns were used to locate the gas fields, which damaged the hearing of local harpoon fishermen; many were forced to suspend their fishing activities for extended periods of time, which impacted local food supplies and did not result in compensation.

In 2014, Anadarko’s environmental impact assessment of the Mozambique LNG Project estimated its direct CO2 emissions at 12.9 million tonnes per year, from 2022 onwards. The facility will release a large amount of greenhouse gases, especially methane. The assessment underestimates the impact of methane that will be released, however. According to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, methane is 87 times more potent than CO2 over 20 years and this facility will leak it into the atmosphere during extraction, processing and transportation. When this is taken into consideration, the direct emissions of the Mozambique LNG Project are closer to 44.9 million tonnes.

The depletion of biodiversity in the area is spelled out in Anadarko’s own environmental impact assessment of the facility. Its location means that mangroves must be cleared, coastal seabeds and coral networks dredged and seagrass beds disturbed. Each of these represent important habitats for birds, reptiles and amphibians, the populations of which would consequently suffer. The introduction of invasive species from ballast shipping water would place further pressure on local biodiversity. The project threatens the Quirimbas National Park, which is also located in Cabo Delgado and has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. These 11 islands incorporate a bird sanctuary for hundreds of species, a variety of reptiles, nearly 50 species of land mammals (including elephants, lions, buffalos and leopards), eight species of marine mammals and thousands of species of flora.

The endangerment of threatened species is anticipated owing to the facility’s location. A number of these, including the sei whale, the Indian yellow-nosed albatross and both the leatherback and hawksbill turtle, are considered imperilled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Seismic disturbances during Anadarko’s surveying of the area have been criticised by environmental organisations for their damaging effects on marine animals. A 2011 report detailed the deaths of large numbers of shallow-water bottom-feeding sea-grass fish, shellfish and turtles following a shallow-water marine seismic programme along the northern coast of Mozambique in 2009.