The World Bank’s board of directors will vote next week on a highly controversial plan to help finance a $3.7 billion oil-and-pipeline project in Chad and Cameroon. Environmentalists are staunchly opposed to the project, being spearheaded by ExxonMobil, which would entail drilling some 300 oil wells in Chad and constructing a 650-mile-long pipeline from southern Chad through Cameroon to the Atlantic Ocean. Enviros and human rights groups say the pipeline would destroy sensitive rainforest land, lead to the forced eviction of inhabitants of the area, and likely result in oil spills. The activists are calling on the World Bank to refuse to make a $365 million loan for the project.
