Carving through equatorial East Africa, the Albertine Rift supports some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet. This colossal network of mountains, valleys, wetlands, and savannah comprises just over one percent of the African continent’s landmass, yet claims more than half of its birds, 40 percent of its mammals, and some 500 species of plant and animal found nowhere else.

In the northern sector of this geologic wonder, a craggy escarpment rolls down to a grassy plain, flanked by Lake Albert on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Murchison Falls National Park, one of Africa’s natural treasures. There, on that sweeping expanse, and partly inside the park, two oil giants are